Scientists have found coronaviruses in bats in Russia
Coronaviruses have been found in bats in Russia, said Anna Speranskaya, head of the genomics and post-genomic technologies group at the Central Research Institute of Epidemiology of Rospotrebnadzor.
But the SARS-CoV-2 variant, which humans become infected, is not among them.
“We were specifically looking for viruses very similar to SARS-CoV-2. But they didn’t find anything, ”RIA Novosti quoted Speranskaya as saying.
It is noted that the scientists tested samples from about 200 bats using the RT-PCR method.
Speranskaya clarified that in nature there are other coronaviruses that are found in bats in all regions where they are found. However, so far they have been little studied in Russia.
Earlier, scientists from Australia and China conducted a large-scale study of the biomaterial of bats living in the Chinese province of Yunnan and discovered four genomes of the coronavirus related to SARS-CoV-2.
