The hunt for the next potential coronavirus animal host
6 Apr, 2020Some scientists warn there’s a small but real possibility the virus could take refuge in a new animal host and reintroduce it to humans in the future.
AS COVID-19 BLISTERS its way around the globe, much of the focus has been on stopping the spread of the virus and treating those who are sick. But virologists say there’s something else that deserves our focus as well—the search for future animal hosts. Experts say that it’s possible the virus could take hold in a new species and build a redoubt for reinfecting people in the future.
“As the virus is spreading around the world, it might find entirely new reservoir hosts [outside of] China,” says virologist Ralph Baric at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. “We don’t know. It is something every country needs to be thinking about as the epidemics wind down.”
Coronaviruses are notoriously promiscuous. Bats host thousands of types without succumbing to illness, and the viruses have the potential to leap to new species. Sometimes they mutate along the way to adapt to their new host; sometimes they can make the leap without changing.
Coronaviruses are known to infect mammals and birds, including dogs, chickens, cattle, pigs, cats, pangolins, and bats. The global health crisis likely started with a coronavirus-infected horseshoe bat in China. From there, the germ possibly jumped to an intermediary species, then jumped to humans. (Read more about how that happens in this zoonotic diseases explainer.)
Virologists are working to predict which species are the most likely potential reservoirs. The risk of the virus taking hold in a new species—and then those animals quietly hosting it for a while before passing it back to humans—is low, says Lin-Fa Wang, a virologist at Duke Global Health Institute in Singapore. But it’s still worth preparing for, Baric says, because the consequences could be a resurgence of the pandemic.