A new genetic analysis of animals in the Wuhan market in 2019 may help find COVID-19’s origin

LONDON (AP) — Scientists searching for the origins of COVID-19 have zeroed in on a short list of animals that possibly helped spread it to people, an effort they hope could allow them to trace the outbreak back to its source. Researchers analyzed genetic material gathered from the Chinese market where the first outbreak was detected and found that the most likely animals were racoon dogs, civet cats and bamboo rats. The scientists suspect infected animals were first brought to the Wuhan market in late November 2019, which then triggered the pandemic. Michael Worobey, one of the new study’s authors, said they found which sub-populations of animals might have transmitted the coronavirus to humans. “For example, with the racoon dogs, we can show that the racoon dogs that were (at the market) … were from a sub-species that circulates more in southern parts of China,” said Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona. While the research bolsters the case that COVID-19 emerged from animals, it does not resolve the polarized and political debate over whether the virus instead emerged from a research lab in China. Mark Woolhouse, a professor of infectious diseases at the University of Edinburgh, said the new genetic analysis suggested that the pandemic “had its evolutionary roots in the market” and that it was very unlikely COVID-19 was infecting people before it was identified at the Huanan market. “It’s a significant finding and this does shift the dial more in favor of an animal origin,” Woolhouse, who was not connected to the research, said. “But it is not conclusive.” An expert group led by the World Health Organization concluded in 2021 that the virus probably spread to humans from animals and that a lab leak was “extremely unlikely.” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus later said it was “premature” to rule out a lab leak. It included 800 samples of genetic material Chinese workers collected on Jan. 1, 2020 from the Huanan seafood market, the day after Wuhan municipal authorities first raised the alarm about an unknown respiratory virus. Chinese scientists published the genetic sequences they found last year, but did not identify any of the animals possibly infected with the coronavirus. Worobey said the information provides “a snapshot of what was (at the market) before the pandemic began” and that genetic analyses like theirs “helps to fill in the blanks of how the virus might have first started spreading.” Woolhouse said the new study, while significant, left some critical issues unanswered. “There is no question COVID was circulating at that market, which was full of animals,” he said. – This Summarize was created by Neural News AI (V1). Source: https://apnews.com/05d573cfd019a20cb46d675af0c669dd