The second wave of coronavirus is wreaking havoc worldwide. Where Covid variant B.1.167 has been a matter of concern to doctors and researchers worldwide, a new coronavirus has been found in Malaysia which is likely transmitted by dogs to humans.
The Covid variant detected in humans is called CCoV-HuPn-2018. The virus is a novel canine-feline recombinant alphacoronavirus and was isolated from human pneumonia patients in Malaysia in 2017 and 2018.
This is the first time that the canine coronavirus is found in humans. However, whether the virus is a threat to humans or not is not determined yet. If it confirms to be a pathogen or spreader of disease among humans, it will be the eighth unique coronaviruses that are known to cause illness in Human beings.
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When the pandemic began last year, Dr. Gregory Gray, an epidemiologies at Duke University along with her graduate student Leshan Xio built a tool that could look for evidence of other coronaviruses. Last year, they examined several samples from patients at a hospital in Sarawak, Malaysia and discovered an entirely new novel coronavirus that was associated with pneumonia patients, mainly children. They examined 301 samples and of these eight patients' upper respiratory tract were infected with a new canine coronavirus.
“That’s a pretty high prevalence of a new virus and that’s remarkable,” Gray said.
The results were sent to be verified by virologist Anastasia Vlasova who is a world expert on animal coronaviruses at Ohio State University.
“Canine coronaviruses were not thought to be transmitted to people. It is never been reported before,” she stated.
All the infected people have recovered fully and so far there are no suggestions regarding its person-to-person transmission.
“At this point, we don’t see any reasons to expect another pandemic from this virus. But I can’t say that’s never going to be a concern,” she said.