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In News
- Recently, the scientists clarified that NeoCov is related to the Middle East respiratory syndrome or MERS-coronavirus.
What is NeoCoV?
- It is a bat coronavirus that was first identified in 2011.
- It was found in a population of bats in South Africa and to date has spread exclusively among these animals.
- It was identified in a species of bats known as Neoromicia, which is where the name NeoCoV was derived from.
- Commonly known as aloe bats, this species is distributed in the Afro-Malagasy region.
- It shares an 85% similarity to MERS-CoV in the genome sequence, making it the closest known relative of MERS-CoV.
- Chances of Human infection: inherently, NeoCoV cannot interact with human receptors, implying that in its current form the virus cannot infect humans.
- It may pose a threat to humans in future.
- The World Health Organization (WHO) still needs to study whether it poses threats for humans.
- Infection with NeoCov could not be cross-neutralised by antibodies targeting SARS-CoV-2 or MERS-CoV.
What is the MERS-CoV virus?
About Coronaviruses
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Source: TH
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