New coronavirus related to viruses from bats

The virus that is causing alarm among global public health authorities after it killed a man in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia earlier this year and is now linked to two other cases of disease, is a novel type of coronavirus most closely related to viruses found in bats, according to a genetic analysis to be published in mBio®, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology, on Nov. 20. Researchers studied the genome of the HCoV-EMC/2012 virus in detail to learn about its relatedness to other viruses and about possible sources. The results of the sequencing and analysis could be used to develop diagnostic methods and possibly in creating therapies and vaccines if they are eventually needed for this emerging disease. “The virus is most closely related to viruses in bats found in Asia, and there are no human viruses closely related to it,” says Ron Fouchier of the Erasmus Medical...