Africa-Press – Rwanda. Rodents are able to carry viruses asymptomatically while being infectious at the same time. As bats, the most likely sources of the pandemic’s SARS-CoV-2 virus, are known to have the same ability, researchers concluded that SARS viruses, including those unknown to science, could be found in rats.
Rodents can be asymptomatic carriers of viruses similar to SARS, which means the next devastating pandemic could come from rats, according to a study by Princeton University published in PLOS Computational Biology.
The researchers analyzed various mammalian species, focusing on those receptors that SARS viruses bind to. The results showed that some rodent species have been repeatedly exposed to SARS-like coronaviruses in the past and have developed some resistance to them.
The study showed that rats underwent a rapid evolution of the ACE2 receptor, which SARS viruses use to enter a cell. This is indicated, in particular, by the wide variety of amino acid sequences encoding the receptor.
As the SARS-CoV-2 virus could be transmitted from animal to person, identifying animals that carry viruses while being protected against them could become vital to prevent future outbreaks, the scientists noted.
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