In 2016-2017, a new coronavirus was discovered in China that originated in horseshoe bats and ended up killing almost 25,000 piglets. The origin of this new coronavirus was near the origin of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (SARS-CoV) outbreak in 2002, which also came from bats. The coronavirus that killed the piglets is called Swine Acute Diarrhea Syndrome Coronavirus (SADS-CoV). But unlike SARS-CoV, which killed over 700 people and infected more than 8,000, SADS-CoV doesn’t seem to infect people, just animals.
Funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a group of scientists from EcoHealth Alliance, Duke-NUS Medical School, and Wuhan Institute of Virology to identify if the coronavirus that killed the pigs could affect humans as well. The researchers published their findings in the journal,Nature.
In late October of 2016, SADS-CoV started killing piglets on a farm in Guangdong Province, but the researchers originally thought that Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus (PEDV) was responsible. By January of 2017, however, the scientists weren’t finding any more incidences of PEDV, but piglets were still dying. This suggested that something other than PEDV was killing the pigs.
The scientists found that the genetic sequence of SADS-CoV is similar to another bat coronavirus that was discovered in 2007. They then looked for evidence of SADS-CoV in bats that were collected in Guangdong Province from 2013-2016. The new coronavirus was present in almost 12% of the bat specimens. 35 farm workers who were in contact with the sick pigs were tested for SADS-CoV and all were negative for the virus.
When new viruses are discovered, it’s important to be able to quickly determine if the virus can infect people or if it’s restricted to animals. Having this knowledge could help to reduce the threat of a global pandemic.