New Delhi: A team of eight researchers from the Institut Pasteur du Combos (IPC) in Phnom Penh, Cambodia is collecting samples from bats in northern Cambodia to track the origins of COVID-19 and understand the coronavirus pandemic.
According to a Reuters report, researchers are conducting experiments in the same area where a similar virus was observed in bats a decade ago.
SARS-CoV-2 . related to
In 2010 two specimens were collected from horseshoe bats in Stung Trent province near Laos. These were kept in the freezer at IPC.
Last year, tests were conducted on these samples, the report mentioned. A close relative of SARS-CoV-2, which is responsible for the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and which has claimed over 4.6 million lives across the world, was revealed as a result of these tests.
In the Philippines, a research similar to that being conducted on Cambodian bats was started earlier this year, and is still ongoing.
According to another Reuters report, researchers in the Philippine province of Laguna, who identify themselves as ‘virus hunters’, were trapping the bats and using them to simulate the model and “prevent the next pandemic”. They were collecting swabs, saliva and feces.
Origin and evolution of bat-borne virus
For a week, researchers have been collecting samples from Cambodian bats, and documenting information such as species, gender, age, among other things.
Thavari Hom, Cambodia’s field coordinator for research, told Reuters they were hoping to have a better understanding of COVID-19 through this study.
Symptoms of pathogens are not observed in host species such as bats, but their transmission to humans or other animals can show extremely devastating effects.
The report mentions that in the last two years four such trips have been made by the IPC to find clues about the origin and evolution of bat-borne viruses, said Dr Veena Duong, head of virology at the IPC.
He told Reuters that his team wanted to know if the virus was still out there and how it evolved.
He said that human intervention and destruction of normal habitats has resulted in devastation due to COVID-19. He said that if humans try to live near wildlife, the chances of the virus infecting humans and contracting the virus carried by wildlife are higher.
Determining the role of the wildlife trade in the spread of the virus is another goal of the French-funded project.
Julia Guillebaud, a research engineer in the IPC’s Virology Unit, told Reuters that the project aims to gain new information about wild meat trade chains in Cambodia, learn about the diversity of betacoronaviruses transmitted through cold chains and To develop a system for early detection of incidents. Which is likely to spread the virus, the report said.
Ebola, and coronaviruses such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) are some of the deadly viruses that originated from bats.
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