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Bat cave solves mystery of deadly SARS virus — and suggests new outbreak could occur

Chinese scientists find all the genetic building blocks of SARS in a single population of horseshoe bats.
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  1. David Cyranoski

    1. David Cyranoski reports for Nature from Shanghai, China.

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After a detective hunt across China, researchers chasing the origin of the deadly SARS virus have finally found their smoking gun. In a remote cave in Yunnan province, virologists have identified a single population of horseshoe bats that harbours virus strains with all the genetic building blocks of the one that jumped to humans in 2002, killing almost 800 people around the world.

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Nature 552, 15-16 (2017)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-017-07766-9

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