CHINESE scientists have discovered eight never-before-seen viruses on a tropical island, it has emerged.
The team warned there’s a high chance the pathogens could infect humans – if they were to jump from animals to humans.
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One of the new bugs comes from same virus family as Covid-19, which has killed almost 7million people globally since 2019.
The team of researchers, funded by the Chinese Government, were tasked with preparing for future pandemics.
They tested almost 700 samples from various rodents on Hainan – an island dubbed the “Hawaii of China”.
Their findings, shared in the journal Virologica Sinica, revealed a host of new bugs, including the new coronavirus, dubbed CoV-HMU-1.
They also found two new pestiviruses, which are related to killer yellow fever and Zika.
In addition two new papillomaviruses were detected – from the family of bugs that can cause genital warts and deadly cancers in people.
Another was an astrovirus, a family of viruses that cause diarrhoeal diseases, like stomach flu.
The scientists also found two new parvoviruses, which can cause flu-like symptoms – especially in children.
The new pathogens have raised concerns due to the “high probability” that they could cross the species barrier and infect humans, the experts said.
Hainan, home to about 9million people, is an island off the south east coast of China, near Vietnam.
The scientists pointed out that it’s likely that other, similarly unknown viruses exist in other remote parts of the world.
“The results expand our knowledge of viral classification and host range and suggest there are highly diverse, undiscovered viruses that have evolved independently in their unique wildlife hosts in inaccessible areas,” the researchers said.
“If these viruses cross the host barrier, they are highly possible to cause zoonosis (when a disease jumps from animals to humans).
“The pathogenicity and associated impact of these novel viruses on humans and animals should be evaluated in further studies.”
Rats carrying diseases pose a huge threat to humans and potential outbreaks.
This is because they “have a strong reproductive ability” and thrive in in densely populated areas like cities, where they have “many opportunities to interact with humans,” the scientists said.
Some of the most devastating pandemics have come from animals, including the Black Death, the global flu outbreak of 1918 HIV/AIDS and Covid-19.
Today, zoonotic diseases account for about two-thirds of human infectious diseases – causing about a billion cases of human illness and millions of deaths each year.
Scientists have warned the next pandemic is likely to emerge from animals because of habitat destruction, close contact and the selling of live wild animals in so-called ‘wet-markets’.
The new study, funded by the Chinese Government, analysed 682 anal and throat swabs collected from various rodents captured on Hainan between 2017 and 2021.
These samples, which were categorised by specific rodent species and location on the island, were then sent for labs to be examined.
Virologist Shi Zhengli, nicknamed China’s “bat woman”, edits Virologica Sinica, the publishing arm of the Chinese Society for Microbiology.
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The influential scientist works in a lab that was accused of accidentally leaking the Covid-19 virus in 2019.
The claim was, however, has been dismissed by independent experts.