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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHow China's "Bat Woman" Hunted Down Viruses from SARS to the New Coronavirus
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-chinas-bat-woman-hunted-down-viruses-from-sars-to-the-new-coronavirus1/I just updated this earlier thread with this article link, but figured it may as well have its own OP.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213293521
How Chinas Bat Woman Hunted Down Viruses from SARS to the New Coronavirus
Wuhan-based virologist Shi Zhengli has identified dozens of deadly SARS-like viruses in bat caves, and she warns there are more out there
By Jane Qiu on March 11, 2020
BEIJINGThe mysterious patient samples arrived at Wuhan Institute of Virology at 7 P.M. on December 30, 2019. Moments later, Shi Zhenglis cell phone rang. It was her boss, the institutes director. The Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention had detected a novel coronavirus in two hospital patients with atypical pneumonia, and it wanted Shis renowned laboratory to investigate. If the finding was confirmed, the new pathogen could pose a serious public health threatbecause it belonged to the same family of bat-borne viruses as the one that caused severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), a disease that plagued 8,100 people and killed nearly 800 of them between 2002 and 2003. Drop whatever you are doing and deal with it now, she recalls the director saying.
Shia virologist who is often called Chinas bat woman by her colleagues because of her virus-hunting expeditions in bat caves over the past 16 yearswalked out of the conference she was attending in Shanghai and hopped on the next train back to Wuhan. "I wondered if [the municipal health authority] got it wrong, she says. I had never expected this kind of thing to happen in Wuhan, in central China. Her studies had shown that the southern, subtropical areas of Guangdong, Guangxi and Yunnan have the greatest risk of coronaviruses jumping to humans from animalsparticularly bats, a known reservoir for many viruses. If coronaviruses were the culprits, she remembers thinking, could they have come from our lab?
Wuhan-based virologist Shi Zhengli has identified dozens of deadly SARS-like viruses in bat caves, and she warns there are more out there
By Jane Qiu on March 11, 2020
BEIJINGThe mysterious patient samples arrived at Wuhan Institute of Virology at 7 P.M. on December 30, 2019. Moments later, Shi Zhenglis cell phone rang. It was her boss, the institutes director. The Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention had detected a novel coronavirus in two hospital patients with atypical pneumonia, and it wanted Shis renowned laboratory to investigate. If the finding was confirmed, the new pathogen could pose a serious public health threatbecause it belonged to the same family of bat-borne viruses as the one that caused severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), a disease that plagued 8,100 people and killed nearly 800 of them between 2002 and 2003. Drop whatever you are doing and deal with it now, she recalls the director saying.
Shia virologist who is often called Chinas bat woman by her colleagues because of her virus-hunting expeditions in bat caves over the past 16 yearswalked out of the conference she was attending in Shanghai and hopped on the next train back to Wuhan. "I wondered if [the municipal health authority] got it wrong, she says. I had never expected this kind of thing to happen in Wuhan, in central China. Her studies had shown that the southern, subtropical areas of Guangdong, Guangxi and Yunnan have the greatest risk of coronaviruses jumping to humans from animalsparticularly bats, a known reservoir for many viruses. If coronaviruses were the culprits, she remembers thinking, could they have come from our lab?
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How China's "Bat Woman" Hunted Down Viruses from SARS to the New Coronavirus (Original Post)
intrepidity
Apr 2020
OP
Takket
(21,560 posts)1. If bars are the source of so many virus outbreaks...
Makes me wonder if we dont need some massive international effort to treat them with some antiviral drugs somehow to improve the health of the colonies???
GusBob
(7,286 posts)3. What antiviral drug?
And lordy it would have to be massive
Chiroptera ( hand wing creatures)
-1, 116 different species
-25 % of mammal species are bats
-their colonies are massive up to a million
eppur_se_muova
(36,259 posts)7. One more reason not to hang out in bars. nt
The Magistrate
(95,244 posts)2. Excellent And Informative, Sir
Thank you for sharing it.
Beakybird
(3,332 posts)4. I hope Batman reads this and stays in his Bat Cave!
intrepidity
(7,294 posts)5. Yeah, he'd better! nt
NBachers
(17,107 posts)6. The entire article is well written and worth reading.