Posted on 4/5/2023 10:18 PM
(Image credit: Pixabay)
Three years after the Covid19 pandemic, Chinese researchers are trying to understand with certainty what might have caused the spread of the coronavirus. Genetic analysis confirmed the presence of DNA from a wild animal that tested positive for the disease, which could point to a lineage to the origin of the virus.
In a text published Wednesday (May 4) in the scientific journal Nature, Chinese researchers found that tests at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China closely linked to the pandemic contained genetic material from wild animals and have tested positive for the Covid.
This confirmation raises the possibility that a wild animal was the intermediate host for a virus that spread to infect humans. However, they say the results do not provide definitive proof that SARSCoV2 originated from an animaltohuman spread event.
While the data analysis is not that conclusive, it will help professionals understand the origin of the pandemic.
According to evolutionary virologist Jesse Bloom, while the tests collected in January 2020 provide useful information about which animals were on the market, older samples need to be analyzed to find the origins of the pandemic. “If we ever discover the exact origins of SARSCoV2, I suspect it will come from new information about cases or events in early December or November 2019 or earlier,” he said.
The market in the city of Wuhan has been closely linked to the Covid outbreak as the first confirmed cases of the disease have been linked to the market outlet for animals known to be hosts of respiratory viruses called sarbecoviruses, which includes SARSCoV 2.
However, experts are not ruling out the possibility of a potential lab leak gaining strength in 2021 that could be one of the origins of the virus.
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