A SARS-like virus found in Chinese horseshoe bats could infect humans without the need for adaptation, which could cause an outbreak according to a study done by UNC researchers.

“The capacity of this group of viruses to jump into humans is greater than we originally thought,” said Vineet Menachery, the study’s first author. “While other adaptations may be required to produce an epidemic, several viral strains circulating in bat populations have already overcome the barrier of replication in human cells and suggest reemergence as a distinct possibility.”

The group of researchers looked at the Chinese horseshoe bat, where the SARS virus originated.

They showed that the new virus, known as WIV1-CoV, readily and efficiently replicated in cultured human airway tissues, suggesting an ability to jump directly to humans.

“To be clear, this virus may never jump to humans, but if it does, WIV1-CoV has the potential to seed a new outbreak with significant consequences for both public health and the global economy,” said Vineet.

The SARS outbreak began in 2002 and resulted in 8,000 cases worldwide before it was controlled.

“The vaccines and drugs that have been developed against the original SARS virus don’t work against this virus and that means we have to reformulate those drugs and those vaccines and those therapeutics so they have a broader activity,” said Ralph Baric, who led the study.

Baric said even though viruses may be similar, this does not mean they will respond to the same vaccines.

“There’s thousands to tens of thousands to millions of closely related viruses, like a swarm of bees,” he said. “In that swarm there are some that are closely related and as you move further and further outside of the swarm they get more and more different.”

However, they also found that antibodies developed to treat SARS were effective in both human and animal tissue samples against WIV1-CoV, providing a potent treatment option if there were an outbreak.

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