麻豆约拍

Three years after the start of the pandemic, the scientific consensus is that Covid-19 ultimately came from bats 鈥� though no good ancestral match has yet been identified.

That leaves open the worry that more new coronaviruses from bats could follow in future.

Chinese and Australian scientists took samples from 149 bats across Yunnan province, which borders Laos and Myanmar, and identified five viruses 鈥渓ikely to be pathogenic to humans or livestock鈥�.

The research 鈥� which has not yet been peer-reviewed 鈥� showed that bats were regularly infected with several viruses simultaneously.

Prof Eddie Holmes, an evolutionary biologist and virologist at the University of Sydney and co-author of the report, explains what this could mean.

(Photo: Two greater horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus ferrumequinum) occurs in Europe, Northern Africa, Central Asia and Eastern Asia. Credit: Getty Images)