Bulgarian Virologist: With SARS-CoV-2 Nature Shows Us We Have a Lot to Learn

Any information on the origin of the coronavirus causing Covid-19 that will be collected during the WHO mission in China will be valuable. Discovering the origin of a virus, we will be prepared for other risks of virus transmission from animals to humans, told BNR virologist Assoc. Prof. Lyubomira Nikolaeva-Glomb from the National Center for Infectious and Parasitic Diseases. "Most emerging respiratory viruses occur precisely in that region," she said.

Any knowledge will help to be prepared for further attacks from the world of viruses, the virologist believes. "It will show us how and where to expect the next transmissions."

Whole genome sequencing of viruses, full ‘decoding’ of their genome helps us work not only with newly discovered viruses, but also with the old and well-known ones, the specialist explained. Such methods, for example, helped find out that the morbid virus invaded the human population 25,000 years ago.

The advent of SARS-CoV-2 does not surprise virologists, at least for ten years it has been known that a pandemic is expected, said Assoc. Prof. Glomb said for Before All talk show.

"As human beings, we arrogantly thought that we knew everything and were ready for anything. Nature gives us a sign to be humble because we have much more to learn. The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 in the human population brought us down to the ground to show us that we have learned a lot, but there is still much more to learn."

"We detected the virus on March 8, but it certainly arrived in Bulgaria earlier. The virus was in circulation in Bulgaria before March 8," said Assoc. Prof. Glomb commenting on the Patient 0 discovered in Italy.

The extreme situation in which the novel virus has put us has helped Bulgarian laboratories to shoot far ahead technologically, the virologist noted.

The development of antiviral agents is a very high obstacle because viruses quickly mutate, quickly develop resistance, as well as because viruses "very well accomodate themselves in the host cell", Lyubomira Nikolaeva-Glomb said further.

"The anti-virus therapy faces the situation when we have to destroy the enemy who has invaded the house, but so destroy it that the house still remains sound. This is very difficult to     attain," the virologist concluded.

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