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EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak speaks with The Scientist about how pathogens like 2019-nCoV jump species, and how to head off the next pandemic. An outbreak of a new virus known as 2019-nCoV, which began in Wuhan, China, in December, has now sickened more than 900 people and killed at least 26. Efforts to contain the outbreak have caused major disruption in China, particularly in Wuhan and nearby cities, where authorities have stopped most forms of transportation. While researchers quickly identified and sequenced 2019-nCoV, many questions remain about the novel coronavirus, including which species first passed it to humans.
The Scientist spoke with Peter Daszak, the president of the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance and an infectious disease researcher who’s done extensive research on emerging viruses in China and elsewhere. He talked with us about how 2019-nCoV fits in with other coronaviruses, including the virus that causes SARS, and how future events might be prevented.
Peter Daszak: There’s a lot being done on how coronaviruses infect people from animals, because we’ve had a few events where they’ve jumped from animals into people, including from livestock. So for MERS, we know the real key is to know what the host cell receptor is—that’s the protein on the surface of cells that viruses bind to and invade. So if we share the same cell surface receptor that the virus uses in bats or in camels or in pigs, then there’s a risk of that virus invading us. For SARS coronavirus, the cell surface receptor is called ACE2, angiotensin converting enzyme 2. We share that with bats, and [the virus] uses the same receptor [in bats and humans]. And . . . because this paper . . . just came out from the Wuhan [Institute of Virology] group, we now know that the new virus also uses that same surface receptor....
