A man holds a pangolin at a wild animal rescue centre in Cuc Phuong, outside Hanoi, Vietnam September 12, 2016. — Reuters pic
China’s official Xinhua news agency reported that the genome sequence of the novel coronavirus strain separated from pangolins in the study was 99 per cent identical to that from infected people. It said the research had found pangolins — the world’s only scaly mammals — to be “the most likely intermediate host.”
“Simply reporting detection of viral RNA with sequence similarity of more than 99 per cent is not sufficient. Could these results have been caused by contamination from a highly infected environment?” Virus experts think it may have originated in bats and then passed to humans, possibly via another species.
We have summarized this news so that you can read it quickly. If you are interested in the news, you can read the full text here. Read more: