Just as the world has started recovering from Covid-19 shocks, a team of scientists in China has sounded alarm that it has discovered never-before-seen viruses from rodents that have the potential for spillover to humans, sparking the next pandemic risk.

The nightmarish observations come amid concerns that zoonotic disease is one of the areas of concern which is affecting humans as well as the animal health and 75% of newly emerging infectious diseases that have affected people over the last three decades are zoonotic in nature.

In fact, Union Health Secretary Sudanshu Pant had recently at an event here had stressed on a better understanding of specific drivers and mechanisms of zoonotic disease, which he added were, crucial to preparing for future disease outbreaks.

The researchers from the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College in their findings, detailed in the journal Virologica Sinica, warned that the pathogens had a “high probability” of infecting humans if they ever cross the species barrier.

The teams found the viruses, including one belonging to the COVID-19 pandemic, from 682 anal and throat swab samples collected from 341 rodents in Hainan Province, in China between 2017 and 2021.

The findings showed that the viruses belong to 22 families including arenavirus, coronavirus, astrovirus, pestivirus, parvovirus, and papillomavirus. According to researchers, the pathogens had a “high probability” of infecting humans if they ever cross the species barrier.