The ICMR scientist also said that the deadly virus have infected humans either direcrtly from the bats or bats might have transmitted it to pangolins from where it got transmitted to humans.
"As per a research in China, it was found that coronavirus might have mutated in bats so as to infect humans," said ICMR's head scientist Dr Raman R Gangakhedkar, on Wednesday.
"There is also a possibility that bats might have transmitted it to pangolins, and from pangolins it got transmitted to humans," he said.
"We also conducted a surveillance. We found that there are two types of bats, and they carried coronavirus which was not capable of affecting humans. It's rare, maybe once in 1000 years that it gets transmitted from bats to humans," he added.
According to the first-time study in India by the ICMR, the presence of bat coronavirus (BtCoV) in two bat species from Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Puducherry, and Tamil Nadu, has been detected.
However, the study clearly mentions that there is no evidence or research to claim that these bat coronaviruses can cause disease in humans.
"Bats are considered to be the natural reservoir for many viruses, of which some are potential human pathogens. In India, an association of Pteropus medius bats with the Nipah virus was reported in the past. It is suspected that the recently emerged severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) also has its association with bats," stated the study published in the Indian Journal of Medical Research (IJMR).
( With inputs from ANI )