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07 February 2020 Bats of the Rhinolophus affinis species, widespread in China and Southeast Asia, are currently the main suspects in the reconstruction of the origins of the 2019-nCoV coronavirus and reveal that the latter is not very subject to mutations.

The news emerges from the largest comparative analysis of the virus genome, moreover developed in Italy, which compares 56 of them, published in the Journal of Medical Virology by the group of the University of Bologna coordinated by the bioinformatic expert Federico Giorgi and in which the student Carmine Ceraolo.

"Last Sunday we downloaded the 56 coronavirus genomes contained in the Gisaid and Genbank databases and looked for similar sequences on public databases," said Federico Giorgi. Thus it emerged that the genome of the human coronavirus shares 96.2% of its genetic heritage with that of the bat Rhinolophus affinis, whose sequence had been obtained in 2013 in the Chinese province of Yunnan.

The intermediate guest
Meanwhile, it turns out that it may have been the pangolin, an anteater covered with endangered soft scales, that facilitated the spread of the new coronavirus in China. This is what South China Agricultural University scientists say have identified the mammal as "potential intermediate host".

The virus is believed to have passed from animal to human in a market in the city of Wuhan, the epicenter of the epidemic; it has long been believed to have originated in bats but some researchers have suggested that there may have been an intermediate host that facilitated transmission to humans.

After testing over a thousand wild animal samples, scientists at the Chinese university have found that the genome sequences of the virus found in pangolins are 99% identical to those in patients infected with the coronavirus. The pangolin is a mammal considered among those most at risk in the world for the intense smuggling of its soft scaled armor.