WHO investigates possibility that raccoon dog is the origin of Covid19; understand

Expert Group Analyzes Whether Meat Sold in Market of Wuhan, China Was a Transmission Vector for Humans; The WHO is also investigating other hypotheses about the origin of the virus

Playback/ pixabay @ artelllliii72
Raccoon dog meat is sold at the Wuhan City Central Market, the city where the pandemic began

The group of experts World Health Organization (WHO) which investigates the origin of Coronaviruscauses the COVID19raised the possibility this Saturday 18 that the raccoon dogAnimal sold in the market in Wuhan where the Pandemic, was significantly involved in the transmission of the pathogen to humans. Recently revealed data from laboratory samples taken at the market indicate a strong presence of DNA from this animal, and photos from the Huanan Market in Wuhan, central China China, prove their meat or meat products were sold at stalls, the WHO said in a statement. “Although this is not conclusive evidence for the intermediate or original hosts of the virus, the data do indicate the presence of animals that may have been the source of human infections,” said the experts at the Scientific Advisory Group on the Origin of New Pathogens (Sago, in English acronym). The data comes from analysis by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in China, published on an openaccess scientific platform, but the text was removed when European experts discovered, studied and reported their findings to the WHO .

According to Sago, these data indicate that none of the 457 direct analyzes of samples from 18 animal species on the market were positive for the Coronavirus SARSCoV2that causes Covid19, but trace amounts of mitochondrial DNA from the aforementioned raccoon dog, a foxrelated dog, have been identified in environmental samples. Other animals whose DNA was discovered in environmental samples from the market and which the WHO says may be susceptible to transmission of the coronavirus include the Malaysian hedgehog and the bamboo rat. “Sago strongly recommends researchers in China to investigate the sources of the animals and animal products in the Huanan market before it closes on January 1, 2020,” the WHO expert group concluded. Experts from Sago, the CDC and others who had access to them when they were published online have held several meetings over the past seven days to discuss the findings of these investigations, which China has again shown opaqueness by using them not directly shared with the WER. .

The international organization stressed when this new advance in the investigations into the mysterious origin of Covid19 was revealed that there are still differing hypotheses about the origin of the coronavirus, which has caused nearly 7 million deaths, 5,000 of them in the last week alone . Among these hypotheses, in addition to transmission from one or more animals to humans, would be one that constitutes contagion through the food chain, or one that assumes it could accidentally leave a laboratory where it was kept for study purposes.

*With information from EFE