SUSAN ELLIS, WIKIMEDIA
Researchers have identified a coronavirus that killed nearly 25,000 piglets in China in 2016 and 2017. Zheng-Li Shi, a virologist at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, and her colleagues report today (April 4) in Nature that the virus, named swine acute diarrhea syndrome coronavirus (SADS-CoV), emerged from horseshoe bats (Rhinolophidae). The same species of bats were the source of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), a related coronavirus that emerged in 2003. Unlike SARS, however, the new virus does not appear to infect humans.
The study should be “a warning of viral interspecies transmission between wildlife and domestic animals,” Shi tells Agence France-Presse (AFP). “It's normal that wildlife carry many viruses, bacteria, fungi, etc. As long as human society keeps away from wildlife, there ...
