A new coronavirus closely related to the pandemic SARS-CoV-2 virus has been discovered in Cambodia. Researchers from the Pasteur Institute in Cambodia found the new virus in two horseshoe bats stored in a freezer, and believe it is one of the first known relatives of SARS-CoV-2 found outside China.
The finding could help to unravel the mystery of how SARS-CoV-2 passed from bats to humans, and could inform the search for the pandemic’s origin, according to the researchers.
Tracey Goldstein, associate director of the One Health Institute at the University of California, who is involved with the Cambodian team, said: “SARS-CoV-2 probably wasn’t a brand new virus that popped up all of a sudden. “Viruses in this group existed before we became