United States: New study has also identified list of wildlife species that are found in Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan China which is thought to have already informed the emergence of COVID-19 virus. These samples comprised more than just the 800 samples collected by the Chinese CDC soon after shutting the market down in early January 2020 and viral genomes of early COVID patients.
As reported by the newsweek.com, The results support the hypothesis that the outbreak started in late 2019 after the live animals carrying SARS-CoV-2 were sold at the market and question other potential sources, including the lab leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
“This paper fits into many other papers over the past couple of years that have been piecing together, the evidence that this is indeed a natural virus which jumped its host very likely at the Wuhan seafood market,” Kristian Andersen, co-corresponding author and professor at Scripps Research, said to Newsweek.
The research team download the sequencing information which has been published by the Chinese CDC earlier and conducted a new analysis of the data. They offer new perspectives in their newer research that they conduct and found out other animals that may have had SARS-CoV-2 such as raccoon dogs, and civet cats whose samples were found to exist in the same market stalls where the virus was found.
Researchers from the Chinese CDC had taken samples of floors, walls, cages of animals, carts and other objects in the market in their study conducted in early 2020. However, they reached the site after the live animals had been taken away; they were still able to extract RNA sequences from the viruses, bacteria, plants, animals and human targets in the samples.
RNA has resemblance with DNA but there are differences, for instance, DNA is double helix while RNA is a single molecule.SARS-CoV-2 was found in close proximity to the genetic material from several wildlife species-in some of the cases they were even found on the same swabs and when we see the samples that contain both the susceptible animals as well as the virus itself and that’s really unheard of in terms of the granularity for understanding the origin of the pandemic outbreak said the Anderson.
Raccon dogs and also the small fox-like animals with the markings which are similar to the raccoons were the most genetically abundant animal in the market samples and their DNA was identified in the same locations and have previously carried the virus which is responsible for the SARS outbreak which was in the year 2003.
Also many of the key animal species had been cleared out before the Chinese CDC teams arrived so we can’t have the direct proof that the animals were infected and the co-corresponding author Florence Debarre of the French National Center for the Scientific Research which is said in a statement.
We are seeing the DNA and the RNA ghosts of these animals in the environmental samples and some are in the stalls where the this was found too and this is what you would expect under a scenario in which there were infected animals in the market.