Dozens of new viruses in animals on Chinese fur farms

Tengrinews.kz - An international research team discovered 125 viruses in animals on fur farms in China, including 36 new ones, according to Naked Science.
The authors of the study, published in the journal Nature, analyzed the genetic material of 461 animals, including minks, raccoon dogs, and foxes that died from diseases from 2021 to 2024. Most of the samples were from farms, with about 50 from wild animals.
The analysis showed that out of the 125 viruses, 36 were new. Among them, 39 infectious agents posed a high risk of transmission to other species, including humans. Viruses such as hepatitis E and Japanese encephalitis are already known in the human population, but 13 of these 39 viruses were previously unknown.

"We also found several types of avian influenza in guinea pigs, minks, and muskrats, as well as seven types of coronaviruses, although none of them were closely related to SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19," the researchers specified.

Scientists closely monitored minks, raccoon dogs, and guinea pigs, as these animals were found to have the most "dangerous" infections.
Scientists fear that thousands of unknown viruses are circulating among wild mammals. Fur farms are particularly concerning, as animals can carry infections that are transmissible to humans. A major concern was a virus found in two minks, previously detected only in the bat species Pipistrellus and linked to a coronavirus.

"We see that the virus jumped from bats to minks raised on farms. This should be a wake-up call for everyone, as it could potentially lead to a new pandemic," explained one of the study's co-authors, virologist Edward Holmes.

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