{"id":9022,"date":"2025-03-19T12:29:14","date_gmt":"2025-03-19T17:29:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=9022"},"modified":"2025-03-19T12:29:17","modified_gmt":"2025-03-19T17:29:17","slug":"close-relative-of-highly-fatal-coronavirus-discovered-in-brazils-bats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2025\/03\/19\/close-relative-of-highly-fatal-coronavirus-discovered-in-brazils-bats\/","title":{"rendered":"Close Relative of Highly Fatal Coronavirus Discovered in Brazil&#8217;s Bats"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/close-relative-of-highly-fatal-coronavirus-discovered-in-brazils-bats\">Science Alert<\/a> Brazil&#8217;s bats are harboring a vast and diverse pool of coronaviruses, a new study finds, including a newly identified strain that may pose a danger to human health in the years to come. Scientists are taking the threat seriously and will soon conduct testing in a secure lab to see if the variant really could spill over to our own species.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The discovery is cause for concern because the strain is eerily reminiscent of the bat-borne virus behind Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) \u2013 a contagion that causes a very high case fatality rate of&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/articles\/PMC8930171\/\">nearly 35 percent<\/a>&nbsp;in humans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since its identification in 2012, the MERS&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/coronavirus\">coronavirus<\/a>&nbsp;(MERS-CoV) has&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.who.int\/health-topics\/middle-east-respiratory-syndrome-coronavirus-mers\">caused 858 known deaths<\/a>, mostly in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia. While mild cases are likely underreported, this&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/virus\">virus<\/a>&nbsp;holds the<a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.4103\/jfmpc.jfmpc_839_21\">&nbsp;highest case fatality rate<\/a>&nbsp;of all the known coronaviruses that can infect humans, making it the most lethal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For comparison, the coronavirus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic, SARS\u2011CoV\u20112, has a human case fatality rate of around 2 percent, according to a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.4103\/jfmpc.jfmpc_839_21\">2022 study<\/a>.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/close-relative-of-highly-fatal-coronavirus-discovered-in-brazils-bats\">Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Science Alert Brazil&#8217;s bats are harboring a vast and diverse pool of coronaviruses, a new study finds, including a newly identified strain that may pose a danger to human health in the years to come. Scientists are taking the threat seriously and will soon conduct testing in a secure lab to see if the variant [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-emerging-infectious-diseases","category-featured-headlines"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9022"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9023,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9022\/revisions\/9023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}