An international team of virus experts has found genetic data from a market in Wuhan, China, linking Covid-19 to a raccoon dog, reinforcing evidence that the virus originated from the illegal trade in wildlife.The Atlantic“.
The controversy over the origin of the virus revolved around two hypotheses: the first says that it leaked from a Chinese laboratory and the second says that it has purely natural roots, and the latter lacked genetic evidence from the Wuhan market to support it.
Details of the report have not yet been published, but the magazine reported some of the findings of the team.
And the magazine reports that an international team of virologists, genomics scientists and evolutionary biologists may finally have found data that help solve the mystery that has been plaguing the world for years.
According to the magazine, a new analysis of genetic sequences collected from the market shows that a raccoon dog sold illegally in the market may have been carrying the virus.
newspaper said,The New York TimesThe genetic data was taken from swabs from the Wuhan seafood market starting in January 2020, shortly after Chinese authorities closed the market due to suspicions it was linked to a new virus outbreak.
The newspaper reveals that the researchers surveyed the walls, floors, metal cages, and carts that transport the cages.
In the samples that carried the virus, the research team found genetic material belonging to the animals, including a large amount of a raccoon dog, three scientists involved in the analysis told the newspaper.
The analysis confirmed that genetic traces of the raccoon were found in the same place where the genetic material of the virus was found, which is consistent with the hypothesis that the virus was transmitted from a wild animal to humans, according to the three scientists.
The report comes after the hypothesis of the virus leaking from the laboratory returned to the fore thanks to a new intelligence assessment from the US Department of Energy and the hearings led by the new Republican leadership of the House of Representatives, according to the New York Times.
The newspaper quoted Jeremy Kamel, a virologist at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in Shreveport who was not involved in the study, as saying that the results show that samples from the market contained the DNA of wild animals.
Kamel indicated that this is not conclusive evidence, but it highlights the role of wild animal trade in the spread of the virus.
And the newspaper reports that a sample that caught the team’s attention was taken from a vehicle in which they found the DNA of a raccoon dog and the virus’s DNA as well, according to what the “New York Times” quoted Stephen Goldstein, a virologist at the University of Utah who worked on the new analysis.
magazine transmits “timeIn turn, the presence of the DNA of the raccoon dog and the genetic material of the virus in the same place means that it is possible that Covid infected the raccoon and transmitted to humans who frequented the market.
And last week, the US House of Representatives unanimously approved a bill aimed at declassifying intelligence information about possible links between Covid-19 and a suspected Chinese laboratory that the Corona virus leaked from.
Last week, the Senate approved the request of the Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haynes, to declassify documents related to this matter, which means that the bill has no choice but to send it to the White House to be signed by President Joe Biden.
The 2019 Covid outbreak began in the eastern Chinese city of Wuhan, causing the death of about seven million people worldwide so far, according to official statistics, including more than one million in the United States.