"This latest discovery will be of great significance for the prevention and control of the origin (of the virus)," South China Agricultural University, which led the research, said in a statement on its website. Health experts think it may have originated in bats and then passed to humans, possibly via another species. But Dirk Pfeiffer, professor of veterinary medicine at Hong Kong's City University, cautioned that the study was still a long way from proving pangolins had transmitted the virus. "You can only draw more definitive conclusions if you compare prevalence (of the coronavirus) between different species based on representative samples, which these almost certainly are not," he said. Even then, a link to humans via food markets still needs to be established, Pfeiffer added.

Source: bd News24 February 07, 2020 09:11 UTC