A recently published study provides further evidence that Covid-19 originated from the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in China.
Nearly five years after the outbreak of Covid-19, the international community has yet to determine the exact source of the pandemic.
The first cases were detected in Wuhan, China, in late 2019, but there has been much heated debate between two main hypotheses.
One hypothesis suggests that the virus leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan that studies similar viruses. The other hypothesis posits that humans contracted Covid-19 from infected wild animals sold at a local market.
Barriers erected outside the Huanan Seafood Market (now closed) in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, on January 31, 2021 – (Photo: AFP).
According to AFP, the scientific community leans towards the second hypothesis, but the debate continues.
On September 19, the journal Cell published a new study that collected over 800 samples from the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, which sold various species of wild mammals.
The samples were collected in January 2020, after the market was closed, and they were not taken directly from animals or humans but from the surfaces of stalls selling wild animals, as well as from drainage systems.
According to co-author of the study, Florence Debarre, an evolutionary biologist at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), with this type of data, “we cannot definitively state that the animals at the market were infected with the virus.” However, “our research confirms that by late 2019, there were wild animal species present at this market, including the raccoon dog and the civet.”
“And these animals were found in the southwestern corner of the market, which is also the area where many SARS-CoV-2 viruses, the cause of Covid-19, were detected,” Debarre added.
These small mammals may be susceptible to similar viruses as humans, making them potential candidates for serving as intermediate hosts transmitting the virus from bats to humans. To date, SARS-CoV-2 is believed to have originated from bats.
Scientists found many items in the stalls at the Huanan Market that tested positive for the virus causing Covid-19, including “animal carts, cages, garbage bins, and fur-scraping machines.”
“In these samples, there was more DNA from wild mammals than from humans,” AFP quoted the study.
“The research indicates that either these animals spread the SARS-CoV-2 virus to the farming tools, or unreported Covid-19 cases in humans spread the virus at the very location where these animals were present.” the study stated.
No measures have yet been implemented to restrict the trade of wild animals to prevent disease outbreaks.
James Wood, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the University of Cambridge (who did not participate in the study), commented that this research “provides very strong evidence that the wild animal stalls at the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan were the epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak.”
James Wood also emphasized that this study is important because “almost no measures have been taken to restrict the trade of live wild animals or to prevent biodiversity loss and land-use changes, which are potential causes of past and future pandemic outbreaks.”
This expert also pointed out that these aspects have not yet been included in the draft pandemic prevention treaty that countries are currently negotiating.
