Article by Andrew Alpin
The coronavirus Pandemic has crossed 16 million cases worldwide and if the current daily figures are anything to go by, we may well see 25 million cases within a couple of months. What works in favor of such assumptions is the fact that countries which had seen a reduction in cases are again witnessing spikes daily. The USA alone reached an astonishing 67,000 + cases on the 26th of July which is alarming to say the least. Taking into account the ongoing research for a cure, treatment plans and a vaccine on a war footing, one wonders why earlier research with evidence on the possible emergence of such pandemic diseases was never taken seriously.
Many may find it unbelievable knowing that a 2007 research study found coronavirus RNA in bats found in the Rocky Mountains USA proving for the first time the existence of group 1 coronavirus in bats in the Western Hemisphere. The study also issues an advisory of pandemics emerging in the near future and we are living that future now.
Bats were widely believed to be the hosts of coronavirus that causes SARS in 2002-2003
The SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) epidemic of 2002 was caused by a new type of coronavirus that had turned zoonotic. While the exact origins of SARS remained unclear, the culprit was widely believed by scientists to be horseshoe bats in China. Chinese scientists spent five years researching horseshoe bats living in a single cave in Yunan Province of China.
The research detected 11 new strains of the coronavirus. Subsequent genome analysis found the strains contained the entire genetic building blocks of the Human SARS coronavirus. However, the research was done in 2017 and established the fact that bats do harbor the coronavirus. The virus was either being passed on to humans or being transferred to other animals like the Civet, developing transmission abilities and then passing onto humans. Epidemiologic studies showed that the first human cases of SARS in China were caused by coronaviruses found in palm civets and racoon dogs sold in live markets. Subsequent studies found that these animals were just an intermediary host and the main origins were bats in Asia.
Scientists felt only Asian bats contained the coronavirus
In 2002, SARS was new to the world pretty much the same way SARS-CoV-2 is today that causes COVID-19. Research that began in the wake of the SARS epidemic began pointing at bats as the hosts of the coronavirus. scientists were then of the belief that coronavirus bats existed only in Asian regions. To find out if American bats also harbored the coronavirus, American scientists from the University of Colorado along with the US Geological Survey decided to study bats from two regions of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado in 2007.
To their amazement, they found coronavirus group 1 RNA in 6 out of 28 fecal specimens from 2 species of bats. They even found that the prevalence of the RNA shedding was high. The study also found the coronaviruses detected were different from group 1 coronaviruses of Asian bats.
High prevalence of group 1 coronavirus found in North American bats
The study mentioned that in spite of a small number of bats sampled, a high prevalence of coronavirus group 1 RNA shedding was found in the 2 species of bats tested. The bats species were collected from North Central Colorado and Southwestern Colorado. The testing method used was reverse transcription PCR (polymerise chain reaction), a method used for measuring a specific amount of RNA. 79 samples were collected that included 28 fecal samples, 29 anal swab specimens and 22 oral swab specimens from 57 bats of seven species of bats from both locations in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Fecal samples to the tune of 50% from the species occult myotis and 17% from big brown bats tested positive for coronavirus.
The Abstract of the study even makes a recommendation that “Because of the potential for bat coronaviruses to cause disease in humans and animals, further surveillance and characterization of bat coronaviruses in North America are needed.” The findings of the study was published in the Journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, Sept 13, 2007.
Bats have been causing a number of viruses
The study authored by Samuel R. Dominguez, Lauren M. Oko, and Kathryn V. Holmes of the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Aurora, Colorado, USA and Thomas J. O’Shea of the US Geological Survey, Fort Collins, Colorado states that this is the first report and evidence of coronavirus bats in the Western Hemisphere. In fact, Bats are reservoirs for rabies virus and other lyssaviruses and were recently shown to be reservoirs for other important emerging viruses.
The outbreak of a Hendra Virus that caused severe respiratory illness in horses and humans in Australia was traced to Old World fruit bats. Bats were also linked to the Nipah Virus that caused widespread outbreaks of lethal encephalitis and respiratory illness in humans and pigs in Malaysia and Singapore in 1999. Studies are also of the opinion that Old World fruit bats may be the hosts of the Ebola and Marburg viruses. Till 2007, over 60 different RNA viruses were identified in bats that contributed to the transmission of zoonotic viruses and now SARS-CoV-2 will be a lethal addition to the list.
The research goes on to state that encoding genes found in SARS-CoV-1 adapted quickly to enable rapid human transmission in the 2002-2003 epidemic. When the genomes of SARS-CoV-1 were sequenced, scientists found “multiple independent species-jumping events of SARS-CoV from animals to humans have occurred.” This should have served as a warning to be aware of the capabilities of such viruses to mutate into new strains that could form a disease like COVID-19.
Genetic similarities in the coronavirus of American and Asian bats
It says that bats may be persistently infected carriers shedding low levels of coronavirus in feces. However studies have found similar fecal shedding of coronaviruses have also been observed pigs, cats, dogs, and cattle. The authors state that it was interesting to note how coronavirus group 1 was detected in bats in North America as well as Asia. Although the study says the coronaviruses group 1 in American bats were distinct from coronavirus in Asian bats, the research found genetic similarities between the coronaviruses of American bat species and the Asian bats. The coronavirus RNA of the big brown bat especially was found to be almost identical to the HKU2 bat coronavirus found in Asian bats of the Rhinolophidae family. It is interesting to note that such bats are not found in the Western Hemisphere and are very different for the big brown bat.
In their discussion, the authors say that while theirs was a small study that detected group 1 coronaviruses, larger studies involving larger numbers of bat species in North America may reveal “additional bat coronaviruses with complex phylogenetic attributes, biogeographic patterns, and perhaps epizootiologic attributes.”
The study also found that the North American Bat species in which group 1 coronaviruses were detected are habituated in roosting in buildings and human habitats. Analysis of genome sequencing of coronavirus in bats animals’ birds and humans suggests that all coronavirus lineages were derived from bats who may be the original hosts of the virus.
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Authors warned how there could be a future emergence of coronavirus in humans
The most amazing part of the study is the concluding warning that reads “IT IS POSSIBLE THAT ANOTHER EPIDEMIC CAUSED BY AN EMERGING CORONAVIRUS COULD OCCUR IN THE FUTURE. As in the SARS epidemic, bats could play a role in future emergence of coronaviruses in humans or other species. Isolation of infectious bat coronaviruses and elucidation of their host ranges, receptor specificities, and genetic diversity will greatly aid in our understanding of their potential for emergence.”
Couldn’t COVID-19 have been avoided or contained?
In the wake of such findings, (the outbreak of SARS-CoV-1, the smaller outbreaks of disease mentioned here due to viruses linked to bats, the subsequent studies in China linking the coronaviruses to bats and the prevalence of transmission abilities to humans and animals), it is interesting to note and indeed question how world health bodies with access to a vast source of scientific insight from evidence could not even consider the possibilities that this new virus may also have human transmission capabilities and was yet another new mutated strain of the coronavirus.
Similarities in symptoms and geographical origins were clearly pointing to a new virus in the making. Yet the WHO, World Health Organization declared in early January that the new virus did not have human transmission capabilities.
It is sad how scientific studies, circumstantial evidence, and even recommendations of scientists just like the one in this study, is no match for world politics. Had such insight on the eventual possibilities of an emerging pandemic been taken into account, the world might not have been in this situation of grief, from loss of life, and monumental economic loss it is facing today.