Scientists who have studied previously unavailable genetic data from samples collected in a market near the site where cases of Covid-19claimed to have found evidence that pandemic comes from animals not from the lab.

Their analysis has not yet been validated by the scientific community, so their findings do not provide confidence in the origin of the pandemic.

“These data do not provide a definitive answer to how the pandemic began, but every piece of data is important in getting us closer to the answer,” World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a briefing today. , Friday.

Criticism of evidence China withheld

He criticized China for not previously sharing genetic information, adding that “this data can and should be notified three years ago“.

These samples were taken from the surface of the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan after the first cases were confirmed in late 2019.

As Ghebreyesus noted, the genetic sequences were posted to the largest publicly available virus database in late January by scientists at China’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, although they have since been deleted.

A French biologist accidentally found this evidence while searching a database and shared it with a group of scientists outside of China.

In the “frame” raccoon dogs

Genetic sequencing data showed that some of the samples known to be positive for the coronavirus they also contained genetic material from raccoon dogs (a species endemic to East Asia), indicating how animals may have been infected with the virusaccording to scientists.

“There is a strong possibility that the animals that left behind the DNA also left behind the virus,” said Steven Goldstein, a virologist at the University of Utah and one of the scientists who analyzed the samples. “If you were to take environmental samples after a zoonoses outbreak, this is exactly what you would expect to find,” he says.

Ray Yip, an epidemiologist and founding member of the Chinese office of the US Centers for Disease Control, said that while the new findings are not the most reliable for confirming the origin of Covid, they are extremely important.

“Sampling data from the Huanan market provided by the Chinese CDC, by far the most compelling evidence to support the theory of animal origin of the virusadds Yip, who was not included in the analysis.

Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, scientists have been looking for traces of the virus to determine its origin, whether it came from an animal that transmitted the virus to humans or from an unintentional leak from a laboratory.

It is noted that it took specialists more than 12 years to establish that SARS, a similar viral disease, came from an animal.

Source: Associated Press.