GENEVA – There is a tantalizing new clue in the search for the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.
New genetic research collected from January to March 2020 at the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, China, discovered animal DNA in samples already known to be positive for SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. A significant amount of the DNA appears to belong to animals known as raccoon dogs, which were known to be traded, according to World Health Organization officials, who addressed the new evidence at a news conference Friday.
The link to raccoon dogs was revealed after Chinese researchers shared uncooked genetic sequences extracted from swab samples collected on the market at the beginning of the pandemic.
A foreign team of researchers saw them and uploaded them for further study, WHO officials said Friday.
The new findings, which have yet to be published publicly, do not answer the question of how the pandemic began. It doesn’t turn out that raccoon dogs became inflamed with SARS-CoV-2, nor that raccoon dogs were the first animals to infect people.
But since viruses don’t last long in the vicinity outside their hosts’ doorsteps, the location of so many genetic garments of the virus combined with the genetic garments of raccoon dogs strongly suggests they may have been carriers, according to scientists who worked on the research. the research was conducted by Kristian Andersen, immunologist and microbiologist at Scripps Research; Edward Holmes, virologist at the University of Sydney; Michael Worobey, evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona. These 3 scientists, who investigated the origins of the pandemic, were interviewed through reporters from The Atlantic magazine. CNN reached out to Andersen, Holmes and Worobey for comment.
Details of the foreign investigation were first reported Thursday across the Atlantic.
The new knowledge comes as congressional Republicans have opened investigations into the origin of the pandemic. Previous studies have provided evidence that the virus likely made the impression naturally on the market, but may not imply an express origin. Some U. S. agencies, adding a recent assessment through the U. S. Department of Energy. The U. S. government says the pandemic is likely the result of a lab leak in Wuhan.
What the samples show
At Friday’s news conference, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the organization first reported the images on Sunday.
“As soon as we became aware of this information, we contacted the Chinese CDC and suggested they share it with the WHO and the foreign clinical network so that it can only be tested,” Tedros said.
The WHO also convened its clinical advisory organization on the origins of new pathogens, known as SAGO, which investigated the roots of the pandemic, to discuss the knowledge on Tuesday. The organization listened to Chinese scientists who had studied the images, as well as the organization of foreign scientists examining them with fresh eyes.
WHO experts said at Friday’s briefing that the knowledge is inconclusive. They still can’t say whether the virus leaked from a lab or spread naturally from animals to humans.
“This knowledge does not provide a definitive answer to the question of how the pandemic began, but each and every knowledge is vital to bringing us closer to that answer,” Tedros said.
What the video proves, WHO officials said, is that China has more knowledge that may be connected to the origins of the pandemic that it has yet to share with the rest of the world.
“This knowledge may have been percentage 3 years ago,” Tedros said. “We continue to call on China to be transparent in knowledge sharing, conduct mandatory research and provide percentage results. “
“Understanding how the pandemic began remains an ethical and clinical imperative. “
CNN reached out to Chinese scientists who first analyzed and shared the data, but got a response.
More knowledge is available
The Chinese researchers, affiliated with that country’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, had shared their own research of the samples in 2022. In this preprint published last year, they concluded that “no SARS-CoV-2 host animal can be inferred. “
The studies analyzed 923 environmental samples collected from the seafood market and 457 samples collected from animals, and found 63 environmental samples positive for the virus that causes COVID-19. Most were taken at the western end of the market. None of the animal samples, which were taken from refrigerated and frozen products finished for sale, and from stray animals roaming the market, were positive, the Chinese authors wrote in 2022.
Examining the other DNA species represented in the environmental samples, the Chinese authors only saw a link to humans, but to other animals.
When a foreign team of researchers took a fresh look at the genetic curtains of the samples, which were stamped on market stalls and their surroundings, a complex genetic strategy called metagenomics, the scientists said they were surprised to find a significant amount of DNA belonging to raccoon dogs, a small fox-like animal. Raccoon dogs can become infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 and top the list of suspected host animals of the virus.
“They discovered molecular evidence that animals were sold in this market. This was suspicious, but they discovered molecular evidence. And also that some of the animals there were vulnerable to SARS-CoV-2 infection, and some of them. These animals come with raccoon dogs,” Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s technical lead for COVID-19, said at Friday’s briefing.
“It does not replace our technique for reading the origins of COVID-19. It simply tells us that there is more knowledge and that knowledge wants to be shared in its entirety,” he said.
Van Kerkhove said that until the foreign clinical network reads about more evidence, “all hypotheses remain in the t. “
More of herbal origin?
Some experts have discovered compelling yet absolutely compelling new evidence of a market origin.
“Knowledge is even more related to an advertising origin,” Andersen, the evolutionary biologist at Scripps Research who attended the WHO assembly and is one of the scientists analyzing the new knowledge, told Science magazine.
The claims made about the new knowledge temporarily sparked debate in the clinical community.
Francois Balloux, director of the Institute of Genetics at University College London, said the fact that the new research has still been published publicly for scientists to review, but has been revealed in news reports, warrants caution.
“Such articles don’t help because they only further polarize the debate,” Balloux posted in a thread on Twitter. It’s a lab leak that will interpret the weakness of the evidence as an attempt at a cover-up. “
Other experts, who were concerned about the analysis, said knowledge may be key to making it appear that the virus has an herbal origin.
Felicia Goodrum is an immunobiologist at the University of Arizona, who recently published a review of all the knowledge we have for the various theories of the pandemic.
Goodrum says the most powerful evidence of an overflow of herbs would be isolating the virus that causes COVID-19 from an animal that hit the market in 2019.
“Obviously, it’s impossible, because we can’t go back in time any more than we did through sequencing, and no animals were provided at the time the sequences were collected. For me, it’s the right thing to do,” Goodrum said in an email to CNN.
At the WHO briefing, Van Kerkhove said Chinese CDC researchers uploaded the images to GISAID while updating their original research. He said his first article is being updated and resubmitted for publication.
“GISAID told us that the knowledge of the Chinese CDC was being updated and expanded,” he said.
Van Kerkhove said Friday that what he would like to do for the WHO is to locate the source of where the animals come from. Were they savages?
He said that in its investigation into the origins of the pandemic, the WHO had continuously asked China for studies to insinuate animals back to their home farms. He said the WHO had also asked for blood tests from others working in the market, as well as tests on animals that may have just come from farms.
“Share the data,” Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO’s fitness emergencies program, said Friday, addressing scientists around the world who may have applicable information. “Let the science do the work and we’ll get the answers. “”