Strange Sounds – February 12, 2020
The new unknown virus has been discovered in Lake Pampulha, an artificial lake in the city of Belo Horizonte, Brazil in January.
Named after the mythological mermaid Yara, the Yaravirus has left scientists baffled because it doesn’t appear to be related to any other viruses in the world.
The new virus contains 74 genes in total, from which only six had already been recorded in literature. In other words, 90 per cent of Yaravirus genes have never been seen before, making it wholly unique.
The discovery comes amid the outbreak of a new killer virus across the world which started in China.
Yaravirus was taken from a single-celled creature called amoeba and scientists already speculate it represents the first isolated case of an unknown group of amoebal virus, describing the Yayavirus as a ‘new lineage of amoebal virus with a puzzling origin and phylogeny.’ in a published paper on the server bioRxiv.
For now, Yaravirus doesn’t appear to pose any threat to humans. It can only transfer between amoeba.