Wuhan market the most likely source of covid-19outbreak

AN ANALYSIS of genetic samples from the Huanan seafood market in Wuhan, China, has identified a shortlist of wild animals being sold there that were the most likely source of the virus that sparked the covid-19pandemic. While bats are thought to have been the original carrier of the SARS-CoV-2virus, it has been proposed that an intermediate wild species got infected and ended up on sale at the market, where an outbreak in humans began. Stalls sold live animals as well as seafood. An alternative suggestion is that the virus escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where staff were known to be studying bat coronaviruses, but not SARS-CoV-2. An international team has now re-analysed data from 800samples collected at the Huanan market by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention starting on 1January2020, and studied viral genomes from the earliest covid-19 cases. Team member EdHolmes at the University of Sydney says Chinese investigators swabbed surfaces, freezers, drains and cages to test for the virus. The team found evidence for a variety of wildlife being sold at the market that could have been an intermediate host, including common raccoon dogs, masked palm civets and hoary bamboo rats. Traces of these animals were found in the same stalls as SARS-CoV-2, says Holmes. “This suggests – but does not prove – that the animals were infected.” “All the scientific data point one way – to SARS-CoV-2’s natural zoonotic origin in the Huanan market, Wuhan,” he says. The genetic studies of the virus in the earliest covid-19cases revealed that few, if any, people were infected before the market outbreak (Cell, doi.org/nh9f). “There is little doubt about the origins of SARS-CoV-2coming from the wet market now,” says Robert Edwards at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia.

Source: New Scientist