A group of Chinese scientists determined that there is insufficient evidence to say that the Covid-19 virus passed from animals to humans in the wuhan food marketin what constitutes a new turn in the search for the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.
“The possibility of a possible introduction of the virus into the market via infected humans or cold chain products cannot yet be ruled out. The evidence provided in this study is not sufficient to support such a hypothesis…”said experts from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
The document, which shares data that WHO experts and scientists around the world have demanded from the Chinese government since the pandemic began, suggests that the coronavirus was in the Huanan seafood market when the outbreak began, but that people may have taken it there to then start spreading in December 2019.
Most studies conducted so far point to the wholesale seafood market as the epicenter of the outbreak.
To understand the precise role of the vast market in the origins of Covid, the group of Chinese scientists analyzed 923 samples taken from the place after the outbreak was first detected and 457 of animalsincluding stray animals, their feces, and meat stored in refrigerators and freezers.
In an article published in the magazine Nature, it is explained that 73 of the samples taken on site (7.9 percent) tested positive for Covid. While most were concentrated on the west side of the market, the virus was also detected at stalls selling a variety of products, from wildlife to vegetables.
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The researchers said this suggests that the covid “may have been circulating on the market” for “a time” in December 2019leading to a large spread of the virus that may have been facilitated by the crowds visiting the market.
Huanan Wet Market is less than 1 km from Hankou Railway Station, described by scientists as a “main travel hub.” It was known for its hundreds of stalls, selling bats, raccoon dogs, and pangolins for consumption.
In addition, poultry, live foxes, crocodiles, wolf cubs, giant salamanders, snakes, rats, frogs, peacocks, porcupines, camel meat and pangolin meat, among others, were also sold at the place.
The researchers explained, however, that none of the 457 animal samples tested positive for the virus and concluded that “it is still possible for the market to act as a transmission amplifier due to the high number of visitors each day”.
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“These environmental samples cannot prove that the animals were infected. Furthermore, even if the animals were infected, our study does not rule out human-to-animal transmission,” they said in Nature.
Three years after the appearance of covid-19, debates about the origin of the disease re-emerge from time to time and Scientists say understanding how the Covid pandemic started is vital to prevent future outbreaks.
“We cannot categorically say how the pandemic began,” he recently opened up. Maria Van Kerkhove, an American epidemiologist at the World Health Organization (WHO), in the midst of a new debate on the issue.
The scientific world mostly estimates that the pandemic began in early 2020 because a wild animal had transmitted the virus to humans months earlier, probably in the Wuhan market.
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Yet others they believe the virus leaked, accidentally or on purpose, from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), which was conducting experiments on live bats.
Dr. Shi Zhengli, a WIV virologist nicknamed “Bat Woman,” was overseeing “gain-of-function” experiments, which can involve deliberate manipulation of pathogens to make them more dangerous.
China rejects this theory, and pointed to the Huanan market, but also denies that the place housed animals susceptible to transmitting the virus. However, there is evidence that many affected patients at the start of the pandemic visited or had links to their posts.
The debate was revived in February after the head of the FBI assured that this theory of the laboratory leak is “very probable”. Although they caused a great media outcry, the statements did not have much impact on the majority scientific opinion.
Weeks later, the defenders of natural transmission resumed the media advantage after a study published in the US media The New York Times y The Atlantic which analyzed the samples collected at the beginning of 2020 in the market. Based on these data, scientists led by the Frenchwoman Florence Débarre found DNA and RNA from numerous wild mammals, which allows them to certify their presence on the market before it closes.
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The case of the raccoon dog stands out, an animal that belongs to the canine family but looks like a raccoon, and that could have been infected with coronavirus and potentially serve as a contagion link between the bat and the human being.
However, this work, which was not published in a scientific journal, does not prove that the raccoon dog is at the origin of the pandemic, nor does it allow us to categorically affirm that these animals were infected because samples were not taken directly from them.
This study constitutes “a new piece of the puzzle that supports a link between the Wuhan animal market and the origin of the pandemic”, but “it is not irrefutable proof”stated on the web The Conversation virologist Connor Bamford, from Queen’s University Belfast.
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