Coronaviruses: Which animal can transmit the virus to humans?

Source: sky.gr

Since 2002, when we first had the SARS-CoV outbreak in China, many studies have highlighted the potential for coronaviruses that infect wildlife to spread to humans and then cause a pandemic.

The largest carrier of such viruses to date appears to be bats, but there are other animals that are vectors or potentially intermediate hosts.

A typical example is the MERS-CoV carried in camels, which cause sporadic transmission to humans.

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has highlighted the importance of the many years of study done on these viruses, but at the same time it has highlighted new research targets that will shield the global community from the advent of a new pandemic virus or strain.

The Professors of the Medical School of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Gikas Majorkinis and Thanos Dimopoulos (Rector of EKPA) state that for this reason the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the USA and specifically the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIA) led by Anthony Fauci has offered $36 million to conduct research to develop vaccines targeting multiple types of coronaviruses as well as mutant strains.

Funding in this phase is given to 3 research centers, namely the University of Wisconsin in its program "Center for the Development of Pan-Coronary Vaccine", the Brigham and Women's Hospital for its program "Discovering Persistent Pan-Coronavirus Immunity" and Duke University for its program "Design and Development of a Pan-Beta-Coronavirus Vaccine".

The funding concerns teams consisting of different specializations in order to improve our knowledge about virology and immunology but also the design of vaccines. It is worth noting that NIAID has invested 1.2 billion in coronavirus research since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.