Tylonycteris bat coronavirus HKU4


Tylonycteris bat coronavirus HKU4 is an enveloped, positive-sense single-stranded RNA virus mammalian Group 2 Betacoronavirus that has been found to be genetically related to the Middle East respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus that is responsible for the 2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy.

Transmission

The exact means of transmission to humans is not yet well known. However, it has been demonstrated that betaCoV's including HKU4 have the propensity to recombine and cause interspecies transmission. However, this is not seen in Group C betaCov's to which MERS-CoV is most closely related.