Evidence Points to Raccoon Dogs as Potential COVID-19 Source

In one other twist to the continued seek for the place COVID-19 originated, a world group of researchers stumbled upon new genetic materials that had been posted on a public scientific database—after which abruptly deleted.

As first reported in the Atlantic, in early March, Florence Debarre, an evolutionary biologist on the French Nationwide Middle for Scientific Analysis, was looking the general public database GISAID, the place scientists add genetic sequences of pathogens they research. On the positioning, she discovered sequences from samples collected in Jan. 2020 from the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China, shortly after the market was closed due to issues that the COVID-19 virus might need originated in animals offered there.

Debarre, together with researchers from the U.S. and Australia, studied the genetic sequences additional and located that one may very well be traced to a cart from a stall that one of many scientists from the staff remembered from a go to to the market again in 2014, according to the New York Times. At the moment, raccoon canine had been saved on a cart through which their cages had been positioned on prime of cages housing birds, a setup that infectious illness specialists know can promote the unfold of viruses from species to species. The pattern taken from the cart in 2020 additionally contained SARS-CoV-2.

In Feb. 2022, Chinese language officers had issued summarizing results of swabs taken in 2020 from air, surfaces, and animals on the market, though all the genetic sequences from these samples weren’t uploaded to GISAID. That report discovered no virus among the many 18 animal species sampled, though the virus was prevalent within the environmental samples, such because the air and on surfaces, which recommended that individuals had been harboring the virus and doubtlessly spreading it on the market.

The scientific and political communities have lengthy been divided over whether or not SARS-CoV-2 got here from animals and unfold to people, or whether or not the virus was created—both deliberately or by accident—by researchers on the close by Wuhan Institute of Virology after which unfold to animals and other people across the globe. In the newest intelligence report on the topic, the U.S. Division of Power leaned towards the lab-leak speculation, however categorized its conclusion as “low confidence.” 4 different U.S. authorities teams and the U.S. Nationwide Intelligence Council decided the virus possible got here from animals and jumped to folks, however their assessments had been additionally of both low or reasonable confidence, leaving open the query of how COVID-19 started.

The brand new samples Debarre discovered could assist to supply some solutions. However shortly after she and different scientists reached out to the Chinese language staff who had written the unique report, the genetic sequences disappeared from GISAID.

Throughout a Mar. 17 press conference, Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Well being Group’s COVID-19 technical lead, known as upon China to make the deleted knowledge out there to scientists. “The massive difficulty proper now’s that this knowledge exists and that it’s not available to the worldwide neighborhood,” she mentioned. In its first investigation, the World Well being Group suggested that the virus possible unfold from bats to folks, though the group earlier this yr scaled back the following stage of its deliberate evaluation, citing challenges in acquiring entry to knowledge from Chinese language well being authorities. “We have to have a look at all the knowledge which can be wanted to evaluate every one in all these [hypotheses] in order that we will say ‘this will have occurred, this will not have occurred.’”

Whereas the most recent genetic proof discovered animal and viral genes in the identical location, it nonetheless doesn’t level to an contaminated animal—or an animal’s genetic sequence that exhibits proof of an infection with the virus. However the truth that raccoon canine DNA and genetic materials from the virus existed in such shut proximity signifies that it’s doable that SARS-CoV-2 contaminated raccoon canine after which jumped to people who frequented the market.

The sequence Debarre discovered means that there are extra knowledge from these preliminary assessments on the market that Chinese language authorities haven’t totally revealed or analyzed. That incompleteness leaves the thriller of the place COVID-19 originated unsolved.

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