As the world continues to battle against the ongoing pandemic, a group of Chinese scientists from Wuhan have issued a warning against a new type of coronavirus named NeoCoV, which is said to be more lethal with a higher infection rate.
As per a report by the Russian news agency Sputnik, the NeoCov virus has been discovered in South Africa and it is claimed to be related to the respiratory syndrome MERS-COV.
However, NeoCov is not entirely new because it is linked to the MERS-CoV virus and its outbreaks were discovered in the Middle Eastern countries in 2012 and 2015. Analysing the study, the tendency appears to be similar to the SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19 in humans.
The alarming part was when Chinese researchers said that weighed in on the mortality rate stating that ‘one in every three infected person dies’.
After a briefing on NeoCoV, experts from the Russian State Virology and Biotechnology Research Center issued a statement on Thursday (January 27).
It stated: “The Vector research centre is aware of the data obtained by Chinese researchers on the NeoCoV coronavirus. At the moment, the issue is not the emergence of a new coronavirus capable of actively spreading among humans.”
The experts have warned against the potential risks, mentioning that further study and investigation are needed to understand the immune escape.
