WHO believes it has detected the place of origin of the pandemic

According to researchers from the World Health Organization (WHO) Exotic animal farms in southern China are the most likely source of the COVID-19 pandemic that has spread around the world.

This was explained by Peter Daszak, disease ecologist at the EcoHealth Alliance and member of the delegation that the WHO sent to the Asian giant to identify the origins that triggered the SARS-CoV-2 virus, in an interview with US radio NPR.

Daszak said that The investigation uncovered new evidence that these wildlife farms supplied animals to vendors at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, where the first reported cases of COVID-19 were identified.

According to the researcher, the Chinese government’s response was another clue that led them to these conclusions, as for them farms were the most likely way for a bat-like coronavirus to arrive from southern China. to infect humans in Wuhan.

These wildlife farms, including those in the Yunnan region, are part of a unique project that the Chinese government has been promoting for 20 years.

“They take exotic animals, like civets, porcupines, pangolins, raccoon dogs and bamboo rats, and raise them in captivity,” Said Daszak.

The agency is expected to release the findings of the team’s investigation within the next two weeks. Meanwhile, Daszak gave NPR a highlight of what the team discovered.

“China has promoted the breeding of wild animals as a way to lift rural people out of poverty,” Said Daszak. The farms have helped the government meet ambitious goals of closing the rural-urban gap.

“It was very successful”, said Daszak. “In 2016, 14 million people were employed on wildlife farms, and it was a $ 70 billion industry.”

Then on February 24, 2020, as the Wuhan epidemic subsided, the Chinese government took a full turn on farms.

“What China did then was very important”, said Daszak. “They issued a statement saying they were going to stop raising wild animals for food.”

The government closed the farms. “They sent instructions to the farmers on how to dispose of the animals safely, bury them, kill them or burn them, so as not to spread the disease.

Why would the government do this? Because, thinks Daszak, These farms could be the site of the spill, where the coronavirus jumped from a bat to another animal and then to people. “I think SARS-CoV-2 was first introduced to people in southern China. It looks like this. “

First, many farms are located in or around a southern province, Yunnan, where Virologists have discovered a bat virus that is 96% genetically similar to SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus responsible for COVID-19 disease. Second, farms raise animals known to carry coronaviruses, such as civets and pangolins.

Finally, during the WHO mission to China, Daszak said the team found new evidence that these farms were supplying suppliers to the Huanan Seafood wholesale market in Wuhan, where a COVID-19 outbreak is occurring. is produced at the beginning.

The market was closed overnight on December 31, 2019, after being linked to cases of what was later described as a mysterious pneumonia-like illness.

“Without a doubt, there was massive transmission in this market”, says Linfa Wang, a virologist who studies bat viruses at the Duke-NUS School of Medicine in Singapore, who is also part of the WHO research team.

Wang says that after the outbreak in Huanan market, Chinese scientists went there and looked for the virus.

“In the live animal section, they had a lot of positive samples”, Wang said. “They even have two samples from which they could isolate live viruses.”

And so Daszak and other members of the WHO team believe that the wildlife farms provided a perfect conduit between a bat infected with a coronavirus in Yunnan (or neighboring Myanmar) and a market in Wuhan animals.

“China is closing this road for a reason”, said Daszak. “The reason was that in February 2020, they thought it was the most likely route (for the coronavirus to spread to Wuhan). And when the WHO report comes out … we think that’s the most likely route as well ”.

The next step, says Daszak, is to find out precisely which animal carries the virus and in which of the many wild animal farms.

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