Thai researchers have insisted that the coronavirus found in a horseshoe bat population in Chachoengsao province last year is not a strain that is transmissible to humans, after several reports suggested that the Covid-19 pandemic may have originated in Thailand.
Supaporn Wacharapluesadee, a researcher with the Thai Red Cross Emerging Infectious Diseases-Health Science Centre, said they are in the same family of coronaviruses, but they do not cause Covid-19.
She made the statement after reports published by a Russian news agency said researchers have found a new strain of coronaviruses in a Thai bat colony which closely resembles the Sars-CoV-2 virus, which causes Covid-19.