New Pandemic of Evolved SARS Viruses Could Come From Rodents, Study Says - Sputnik International

Rodents are able to carry viruses asymptomatically while being infectious at the same time. As bats, the most likely sources of the pandemic's SARS-CoV-2 virus, are known to have the same ability, researchers concluded that SARS viruses, including those unknown to science, could be found in rats.

Rodents can be asymptomatic carriers of viruses similar to SARS, which means the next devastating pandemic could come from rats, according to a study by Princeton University published in PLOS Computational Biology.

The researchers analyzed various mammalian species, focusing on those receptors that SARS viruses bind to. The results showed that some rodent species have been repeatedly exposed to SARS-like coronaviruses in the past and have developed some resistance to them.