EID: Novel Bat Coronaviruses, Brazil and Mexico

[tetano]

To the Editor: Bats are now recognized as natural reservoirs for many families of viruses that can cross species barriers and cause emerging diseases of humans and animals. Protecting humans against emerging diseases relies on identifying natural reservoirs for such viruses and surveillance for host-jumping events. The emergence of the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) on the Arabian Peninsula (1) further justifies increased surveillance for coronaviruses (CoVs) in bats. MERS-CoV most likely is a zoonotic virus from a bat reservoir and is associated with high case-fatality rates among humans. The existence of a diverse array of alphacoronaviruses in bats in the United States, Canada, and Trinidad has been reported (2?6). Recently, a possible new alphacoronavirus was detected in an urban roost of bats in southern Brazil (7), and a survey of bats in southern Mexico reported 8 novel alphacoronaviruses and 4 novel betacoronaviruses, 1 with 96% similarity to MERS-CoV (8). These findings expand the diversity and range of known bat coronaviruses and increase the known reservoir for potential emerging zoonotic CoVs.

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http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/19/10/13-0525_article.htm