Via Canada.com, a report by Helen Branswell of The Canadian Press: SARS-like viruses found in Chinese bats; closest hits yet to 2003 outbreak virus. Excerpt:
A consortium of international scientists has discovered a SARS-like virus recovered from a Chinese horseshoe bat.
The virus is the closest genetic match to the coronavirus that caused the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, which sickened nearly 8,500 people in 29 countries and killed 916.
In fact, when the new virus was tested against stored blood samples from nine SARS cases, antibodies neutralized the virus in seven of the cases.
The scientists say that suggests the new virus, called WIV1, is very closely related to the SARS coronavirus.
They report that the virus was able to directly infect human cells in laboratory work, suggesting this means bat viruses like SARS may not have to pass through an intermediary host to start infecting people.
