Scientists have discovered a new virus, Salt Gully, in bats.

Scientists have discovered a new bat-borne virus in flying foxes living in Australia, The Telegraph reports. It has been namedSALT Gully.

Jennifer Barr, an expert at the Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness, said the virus was found in bat samples dating back to 2011.

"This suggests that it has been circulating in nature for more than a decade. <…> Therefore, we cannot predict whether it will lead to future outbreaks of disease in humans or animals," she said.

The pathogen is related to two others—Nipah and Hendra. According to the World HEALTH Organization (WHO), both are considered "priority pathogens."

According to The Telegraph, there is no indication that the new virus can be transmitted to humans.

Barr noted that experts now have the opportunity to develop diagnostic tests that can help detect the virus in its early stages and prevent its spread.

According to one version, the source of the CORONAVIRUS that caused the pandemiccovid-19 originated from bats. In September 2024 , scientists from the United States , France, the United Kingdom , and other countries published a joint study indicating that the source of the coronavirus in Wuhan was the Huanan market, where the largest number of wild animals were sold.

Scientists have established that in late autumn 2019, several vendors were illegally selling wild animals such as raccoon dogs, civets, bamboo rats, Malayan porcupines, Amur hedgehogs, and Asian badgers. Most of the vendors of these wild animals were located in the western wing of the market, where the earliest and most cases of COVID-19 infection were also recorded. Traces of the coronavirus were found in the cages where the animals were kept, the carts used to transport them, in sewage drains, and elsewhere. The scientists found that the samples taken genetically matched the common ancestor of the entire pandemic.

In February, the newspaper SouthThe CHINA Morning Post reported, citing a study, that Chinese virologists have discovered a new coronavirus in bats that can infect humans in the same way as COVID-19. The pathogen discovered is a new lineage of coronavirus (Pipistrellus bat)CORONAVIRUS HKU5), which was identified in Hong Kong in the Japanese pipistrelle (a genus of smooth-nosed bats that includes about 40 species), the publication wrote.

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