Biology Faculty Articles
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
9-2-2020
Publication Title
Conservation Letters
Keywords
Animal conservation, Coronavirus, COVID-19, CT imaging, Pangolins, Pangolin pathology
ISSN
1755-263X
First Page
e12754
Abstract
The COVID‐19 outbreak has infected over 6 million people across the world. The origin of COVID‐19 coronavirus (CoV) remains unknown, although pangolins have been suggested as potential hosts. We investigated two pangolins seized in Guangdong Province, China. Molecular screening revealed CoV in one pangolin (“Dahu”), while another (“Meidong”) was infected by Ehrlichia ruminantium. Dahu exhibited difficulty breathing, infections of lung, intestines, and nostrils, as revealed by computed tomography imaging and necropsy. Previous phylogenetic analyses showed bat coronavirus RaTG13 is closer to COVID‐19 CoV compared to pangolin coronavirus. Over 20 caregivers have had close physical contact with CoV‐positive Dahu, but none became infected with CoV. Our data suggest that pangolins are unlikely the natural reservoir or secondary hosts of COVID‐19 CoV. Pangolins seems to be victims infected by CoV carried by a not yet unidentified natural reservoir host species, perhaps due to their weakened immune system.
Additional Comments
Wenzhou‐Kean University grant #: 5000105
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
NSUWorks Citation
Choo, Siew Woh; Jinfeng Zhou; Xuechen Tian; Siyuan Zhang; Shen Qiang; Stephen James O'Brien; Ka Yun Tan; Sara Platto; Klaus-Peter Koepfli; Agostinho Antunes; and Frankie Thomas Sitam. 2020. "Are Pangolins Scapegoats of the COVID-19 Outbreak-CoV Transmission and Pathology Evidence?." Conservation Letters , (): e12754. doi:10.1111/conl.12754.
ORCID ID
0000-0001-7353-8301
ResearcherID
N-1726-2015
DOI
10.1111/conl.12754
Comments
© 2020 The Authors. Conservation Letters published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.