Rospotrebnadzor is examining bats that live in different regions of Russia for the presence of coronaviruses. The project will help assess the possible ways of spreading infection and epidemic risks, RIA Novosti reports with reference to the press service of the department.
It is noted that experts are testing bats in Moscow, the Moscow region, as well as in the Voronezh and Volgograd regions and the Black Sea coast of the Krasnodar Territory.
The press service explained that the main task of this study is to assess the incidence of coronaviruses in different species of bats, to establish the degree of relationship of the detected viruses with previously known ones, as well as to obtain information on the biological diversity of coronaviruses carried by animals, to analyze the map of the movement of bats across Russia. and assess the possible routes of spread of coronaviruses.
The study will help scientists more accurately and objectively assess possible epidemic risks, as well as make predictions of the occurrence and spread of coronavirus infections, the department noted.
For the first time, an outbreak of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 was recorded in December 2019 in the Chinese city of Wuhan. US officials blame Beijing for spreading the virus around the world. A number of experts put forward theories about the laboratory origin of the infection, but this version did not find a positive response among scientists.
In July, it became known that a new type of coronavirus was found in wastewater samples from January 2018 to December 2019 from Barcelona, ​​Spain.