Coronavirus is of animal origin, World Health Organization concluded

World Health Organization (WHO) specialists who traveled to Wuhan, China to determine the origin of COVID-19, determined that further study and analysis still needs to be done to determine the start of the pandemic, even if it is still a long way from a definitive answer. The objective of this mission, according to the team of experts, was to serve as a first step to what would be a series of more precise and detailed surveys, with criteria of temporality and location, in order to be able to develop a scientific argument. which allows a definitive and safe conclusion to be reached on how the coronavirus passed to humans.

The first cases of COVID-19 were known after the Huanan market outbreak, where they were likely infected in early December or late November 2019. According to Embarek, theInitial results suggest that introduction via an intermediate host species is the most likely route and one that will require more studies and more focused research. However, he added that the possibility of transmission through trade in frozen products was also likely..

This is not the case with what the head of the COVID-19 Response Expert Group of the National Health Commission of China, Liang Wannian, said, who said that Studies and research have failed to identify evidence of SARS viruses linked to CoV-2 in samples of wildlife in Wuhan and various places in China. In this sense, he said that all the animals were negative, referring to the tests carried out. But at the same time, he said that sampling of the Huanan seafood market showed that there was “widespread surface contamination” with SARS-CoV-2.

“According to this investigation, all samples related to animal products were negative. For cold chain products and relevant tests, the investigation is underway, ”said the Chinese specialist. This finding was consistent with the introduction of the virus from infected people or products related to the cold chain, animals and animal products.

However, the head of the United Nations (UN) mission pointed out two other hypotheses the team had investigated while investigating the origin of the virus. One of them was a direct zoonotic effusion, that is, direct transmission from an animal reservoir to a human being. The conjecture of a direct discharge from an original animal source to the human population is also a possible avenue and also generates recommendations for future studies, underlined Peter Ben Embarek.

Another member of the international delegation, Dutch virologist Marion Koopmans, noted that the Huanan seafood market in Wuhan, which was considered at the start of the pandemic to be the source of the disease because it sold a large assortment frozen products and meat., in addition to live animals, domestic or wild. And possible suspicious species that were traded there: rabbits, ferrets and bamboo rats, said the scientist. But the Chinese representative explained that the virus can persist under conditions found in frozen foods, packaging and cold chain products, and that recent outbreaks in China have been linked to the cold chain.

The investigation carried out by the WHO to discover the origin of the spread of SARS-CoV-2 to humans has been carried out along four axes. The first, in direct transmission from animal to human. The second, in transmission via an intermediate animal host. The third in transmission by certain frozen foods in the cold chain and the last in a possible leak from a laboratory. Although the head of the mission of the World Health Organization, said that “everything continues to point to a reservoir of this virus, or a similar virus, in bat populations. And the bottom line is that we have found no evidence of large outbreaks that could be linked to COVID-19 cases before December 2019 in Wuhan or elsewhere, ”he added.

In this sense, Liang Wannian, head of the Chinese expert team that investigated SARS-CoV-2, pointed out that the virus could circulate earlier elsewhere. In the two months leading up to December, there is no evidence he was in the city, Liang noted, pointing to possible loopholes in the detection of the virus in other areas. The first cases in the city occurred not only in the Huanan market, but also “simultaneously” in other places unrelated to the live animal trading post., which they did not provide further details on the trace.

Knowing the origin of this virus is and will continue to be the subject of rigorous studies, so it will still take a long time. From frozen foods, to bats, a lab leak, pangolins or a market that sells live fish, meat and wild animals, they are possible causes of COVID-19, but it remains. to confirm.

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