Covid-19 may have started in raccoon dogs, new DNA evidence shows

The long-running debate over the origins of covid-19 took one other flip this week, after a French scientist noticed that genetic sequences placed on a database by Chinese researchers recommend that the coronavirus accountable might need come from animals comparable to raccoon canine on the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan.

Within just a few days, the sequences have been eliminated by the identical researchers – though another scientists managed to obtain them beforehand and are investigating additional.

“It is really critical that any and all data that relates to how this pandemic began be made available immediately,” Maria Van Kerkhove on the World Health Organization (WHO) stated at a press convention on 17 March.

“There are several hypotheses that need to be examined, including how the virus entered the human population, either from a bat, through an intermediate host or through a breach in biosecurity from a lab. And we don’t have a definitive answer.”

The Huanan market has lengthy been seen as a possible origin for the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, as lots of the first circumstances of covid-19, in December 2019, have been in folks with a connection to it and the stalls bought a variety of reside and lifeless animals, not simply seafood.

SARS-CoV-2’s authentic host is regarded as bats, as they carry many coronaviruses, though they haven’t but been discovered with SARS-CoV-2. The ancestor of this virus could have jumped from bats to an intermediate host bought on the market, after which to folks.

An various rationalization is that the virus escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the place researchers have been identified to be finding out bat coronaviruses, however not SARS-CoV-2. While this can be a less-favoured concept amongst scientists, in February, the US Department of Energy stated it was the most probably rationalization, however didn’t launch supporting proof.

Now, genetic sequences uploaded onto a world virology database known as GISAID by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention could have shed extra gentle on SARS-CoV-2’s origin. These sequences have been derived from swabs taken from numerous surfaces on the market in early 2020 after it had been shut down.

They have been observed by Florence Débarre on the French National Centre for Scientific Research, who shared her findings with the WHO on 14 March. “I was focusing on market sequences when I logged in, but I was not expecting to find the data I found,” says Débarre.

Débarre declined to say any extra till her evaluation is full, however Van Kerkhove stated on the press convention: “Amongst the samples that were positive for SARS-CoV-2, they saw evidence of DNA of animals. Some of these animals include raccoon dogs.”

Raccoon canine (Nyctereutes procyonoides) have beforehand been discovered to be prone to SARS-CoV-2 and to be able to spreading it. “We know they are good at carrying it,” says Alice Hughes on the University of Hong Kong.

This doesn’t show that raccoon canine or any of the opposite animals on the market have been contaminated with the virus in December 2019 and such proof is now inconceivable to supply, says Hughes.

Jonathan Stoye on the Francis Crick Institute in London says: “The data would appear to provide convincing evidence that raccoon dogs and other animals were present at the market at a critical time. This is another link in the chain that you would expect to see if the pandemic started that way.”

Off the again of the knowledge Débarre shared, Van Kerkhove stated that the WHO has requested the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention to rerelease the genetic information. “The big issue is that this data exists and that it is not readily available to the international community, not to mention that it should have been made available years earlier.”