As the menace of the Covid-19 pandemic is slowing down across the world, a new disease has been detected in Russia from the same family of viruses, which is likely to infect humans. As per Time Magazine reports, the Khosta-2 virus can soon spread to humans across the globe.

In a recent study by researchers of Washington State University’s Paul Allen School for Global Health found that SARS-CoV-2-like virus – Khosta-2 infects humans and evades the immunological defenses provided by the Covid-19 vaccine.

The researchers first discovered the virus in Russian bats in late 2020, identified two new viruses, and named them Khosta-1 and Khosta-2. They insist that Khosta-1 does not pose much threat to humans but the Khosta-2 demonstrated some troubling traits and can be dangerous.

Scientists say that the sarbecoviruses are the respiratory viruses that frequently undergo recombination, which is a process of viral strains mixing to make a new strain.

The researchers said the study’s findings demonstrate that sarbecoviruses in wildlife outside of Asia pose “a threat to global health," as well as to ongoing COVID-19 vaccination campaigns, reports Newsweek. However, according to the researchers, this virus does not have genes that can cause serious disease in people like the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, but can eventually change if it gets mixed with genes of SARS-CoV-2.

Researchers have also pointed out that the discovery highlights the need to develop universal vaccines against sarbecoviruses to protect against future Covid-like pandemics.