US scientists are warning that a recently discovered virus found in Russian horseshoe bats is also capable of infecting humans and evading Covid-19 antibodies and vaccines.
The world is still suffering with Covid, which originated in a Chinese bat - but now Khosta-2 could follow it.
The medical term for the new spread is sarbecovirus, which comes from the same sub-category of coronaviruses as SARS-CoV-2.
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Scientists at the Paul G. Allen School for Global Health at Washington State University (WSU) have discovered that Khosta-2 can use its spike proteins to infect humans in a similar manner to how the coronavirus did.
"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, corresponding author of the study, said in a statement.
"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 added
"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".
There is some positive news - the virus does not have some of the genetic features which can cause problems for our immune systems.
However, should it combine with other viruses, like the norovirus or the coronavirus, things could get a bit messy.
Using samples taken from people vaccinated against Covid-19, the team discovered Khosta-2 was not neutralised by current vaccines.
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