Coronavirus comes from exotic animal farm in southern China, WHO research shows

SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus likely originated from an exotic animal farm in southern China, according to Peter Daszak, president of the EcoHealth Alliance and one of the members of the World Health Organization (WHO) delegation that investigated the start of the pandemic in the Asian giant earlier this year.

In an interview broadcast this Tuesday on American radio NPR, Daszak assured that the WHO research team sent to China, including himself, found new evidence that the wildlife farms supplied the Huanan market with Wuhan (provincia of Hubei).

According to Daszak, the rapid reaction of the Chinese government to close these farms is a sign that the most likely route of transmission of the coronavirus was through bats to some kind of captive-bred wild animal in southern China and from there to humans.

The researcher said he and other experts from the WHO team who visited China earlier this year believed the bat that hatched the first SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus was from the province. from southern Yunnan or neighboring Burma.

“I think SARS-CoV-2 infected the first people in southern China. It seems like that, ”said the expert who also bases his conclusions on the fact that the Chinese government has decided to shut down the important livestock sector. exotic in Yunnan province.

“These farms,” argued Daszak, “take exotic animals such as genets, porcupines, pangolins, raccoons or bamboo rats to breed in captivity ”and have been closed by order of the Chinese government.

“China closed them because in February 2020 it believed it was the most possible route (of contagion in Wuhan, where the new disease was first detected). And in the WHO report, we also believe that this is the most likely path, “advancement.

WHO will present a report in the coming weeks with some of the conclusions drawn by the team of experts that traveled to Wuhan to investigate the origin of the covid-19 pandemic.

This expert, who worked on the investigation into the origins of the SARS virus, stressed that now the key will be to determine which animal was the bridge between bats and humans and which farm, among the many that were promoted in southern China upon lifting. the rural population lifted out of poverty is at the origin of the pandemic which has killed more than 2.6 million people.

Source: EFE