A new virus with a zoonotic potential threatens the relative peace of the World Health Organization due to the course of the Covid-19 pandemic.
It is called Khosta 2, a virus found in Russian bats that is capable of infecting humans and evading the protections and antibodies of the coronavirus.
A team led by the researchers of Paul G. Allen School for Global Health of the Washington State University discovered that Khosta-2 proteins can infect human cells in a very similar way to the SARS-CoV-2.
"Our research further demonstrates that sarbecoviruses circulating in wildlife outside of Asia – even in places like western Russia where the Khosta-2 virus was found – also pose a threat to global health and ongoing vaccine campaigns against SARS-CoV-2," Michael Letko, a virologist at WSU and corresponding author of the study, said.
Khosta-1 and Khosta-2 viruses were first discovered near the Sochi National Park of Russia in 2020, and they initially seemed like they do not pose any risk to humans, according to the authors of the study.
"Genetically, these weird Russian viruses looked like some of the others that had been discovered elsewhere around the world, but because they did not look like SARS-CoV-2, no one thought they were really anything to get too excited about," Letko said.
"But when we looked at them more, we were really surprised to find they could infect human cells. That changes a little bit of our understanding of these viruses, where they come from and what regions are concerning".
The real risk is that Khosta-2 can cause big damage when recombined with a second virus, like SARS-CoV-2.
"When you see SARS-2 has this ability to spill back from humans and into wildlife, and then there are other viruses like Khosta-2 waiting in those animals with these properties we really don't want them to have, it sets up this scenario where you keep rolling the dice until they combine to make a potentially riskier virus," Letko said.
