Wuhan Seafood Market identified as the origin of Covid 19 according to latest scientific report

The origin of COVID-19 has been a mystery since the virus appeared in 2019. Scientists have tracked the virus, which killed more than 6 million people worldwide, to Wuhan, China. But what remains unclear is how COVID became a deadly pandemic. Did the virus naturally jump from animals to humans, or was it created by a local researcher in the lab? Now, two new studies may have found the answer.

According to the international team, live animals sold at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan are likely to be the cause of the pandemic, and the virus has repeatedly flown from animals to humans. The study also argues that an alternative COVID-19 origin theory is very unlikely.

In the first study, researchers at the University of Arizona and Scripps Research analyzed the geographical pattern of COVID-19 cases in the first month of the December 2019 outbreak. Researchers were able to locate almost every 174 coronavirus cases identified. At that time, according to the World Health Organization. Of those 174 cases, 155 were in Wuhan. These incidents were concentrated around the Huanan Seafood Market, and subsequent incidents spread widely throughout Wuhan, a city of about 11 million people.

Researchers found that the majority of early COVID-19 patients had no recent visits to the South China market, but lived much closer than others. Michael Worobey, an evolutionary expert at the University of Arizona, the lead author of , states that this shows that the market was at the heart of the pandemic. “A city covering more than 3,000 square miles and most likely to contain the home of someone who had one of the earliest COVID-19 cases in the world is the area of ​​a few blocks of Huanan-Market blob. “It was. We are there,” said Warobib, a university publication and head of the university’s Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.

Warobib states that another finding may support this conclusion. When researchers examined the geographical distribution of COVID cases after January and February 2020, they found the “opposite” pattern. These cases matched the most densely populated areas in Wuhan, but the December 2019 case was mapped “like a bullseye” in the market. “This shows that the virus wasn’t mysteriously circulating,” Warobib said. “It really started in that market and spread from there.” Which animal spreads the virus?

In the first study, researchers also looked at swab samples from market surfaces such as floors and cages after the South China market was closed. Samples that tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus were usually from stalls selling live wildlife.

Researchers said animals currently known to be susceptible to the virus, such as red foxes, pig badgers, and raccoon dogs, were sold in the South China market weeks before the first recorded COVID-19 cases. Said. Researchers finally created a detailed map of the market, showing that the positive samples reported by Chinese scientists in early 2020 are clearly associated with the western part of the market. In this area, traders slaughtered meat or sold live animals at the end of 2019. “Upstream events are still unknown, but an analysis of available evidence clearly shows that the pandemic resulted from the first human infection from an animal sold at the Huanan Seafood Market in late November 2019.” Masu explains.

Christian Andersen, co-chief author of both studies, professor of immunology and microbiology at Scripps Research. Animal transmission probably spread in Wuhan The second study combined epidemic modeling with analysis of the early evolution of the virus based on the earliest extracted genomes. Scientists have determined that the pandemic most likely resulted from at least two separate human contact transmissions in the South China market in November and perhaps December 2019. Their analysis also suggested that there was human transmission of the virus from several other animals on the market. However, these did not develop into cases of COVID-19.

Researchers conclude that COVID-19 originated from the animal-to-human leap in the Huanan market. These animals may have been infected with the virus in wild bats and local farms in China. “To better understand the origin of SARS-CoV-2, we need a better understanding of what happened to the South China market, which requires close international cooperation and cooperation,” Andersen said.

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Results are published in the journal Science.