Top Scientists Demand Deeper Study Of Bat Viruses to Prevent Future New Pandemic Similar To COVID-19

Top scientists have called for the urgency to facilitate a “quantum leap” in research on bat viruses to prevent future pandemics of the scale of COVID-19.

The scientists, who collabora tively wrote in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, also pointed to the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic did result due to the failure to understand and pay attention to the warnings by others who were already working on bat viruses.

The open note, written by 10 eminent scientists, explains how warnings concerning viruses in bats and the risk from it have gone unheeded for many years and there seems to be no urgency in doing something about it and address the concerns related to the risk such viruses possess.

In the letter that was published on Wednesday, July 22, the scientists have written that the world is paying a tragic price for prolonged deafness toward constant warnings in the past.

“Important research that has languished, been underfunded or discontinued should be greatly expanded to deal with the urgency of the situation, and more scientists, including scientists working in China and other hotspot countries, should be recruited to these efforts, especially in international research partnerships,” the scientists wrote in the letter.

The virus was first identified in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in the last quarter of 2019. It is believed that the virus was passed on to humans from bats through an intermediary route. However, the clear pathway by which it started to infect humans is not yet known.

Even since the coronavirus outbreak was reported and was later declared as a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO), Chins have been criticized by the U.S. and its allies for the loss of lives and the economic damage it has caused.

While the U.S. President Donald Trump directly blamed China unleashing the pandemic on to the world, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has previously said that it could have been a result of an accident at Wuhan lab which is involved in the study on bat coronaviruses. However, there is no evidence as such for similar claims being made by politicians and researchers across the world.

The article has called for more funding into this area of research and has also pushed back speculations of the novel coronavirus being a manufactured or bioengineered virus. The scientists further emphasized the urgent need for research to study the natural emergence of novel coronaviruses in humans.