‘Strong evidence’ hints COVID-19 originated from Wuhan market

COVID-19 most likely originated from infected animals at a Chinese market, a new study has found almost after five years the virus first emerged. Published in the Cell journal (peer-reviewed), the study cites strong evidence, based on the 800 samples collected from Wuhan’s Huanan Seafood Market. The samples were collected by Chinese authorities in January 2020 when the market was closed down.

The study found that several parts of one stall from the Wuhan market tested positive for Covid, including “animal carts, a cage, a garbage cart, and a hair/feather removal machine.”

It also established that “there were wild animals at this market at the end of 2019, notably belonging to species such as raccoon dogs and civets.”

Interestingly, the presence of these animals was first disputed, despite photographic evidence.

“And these animals were in the southwest corner of the market, which also happens to be an area where a lot of SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes Covid-19, was detected,” the study noted.

The research also found a genetic similarity between the original pandemic strain and the “most recent common ancestor” of the Covid virus strain found in the market samples.

Study co-author Florence Debarre said, “This means that the early diversity of the virus is found at the market – as would be expected if this is the site where it emerged.”

Now, based on the recent evidence, scientists are floating two possibilities that led to the overlapping genetic evidence.

One likely scenario is that animals infected with COVID-19 were first brought to the Wuhan market, and the virus then jumped to humans. The second possibility is that an infected human, who may have got the virus from some other source, visited the Wuhan market and shed some of it behind. Then, it may have jumped to mammals as well as humans.

Michael Worobey, head of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona and a co-author of the new paper, said, “It doesn’t 100% prove that those animals had SARS-CoV-2, but it shows that you can just say goodbye to the idea that these [coronavirus-susceptible] animals weren’t even there at the time the pandemic started. The ghosts of their DNA and RNA were certainly there. [The animals] were observed there in November by Chinese colleagues. And it becomes yet another piece of evidence that you can throw against any hypothesis for the origin.”

(With inputs from agencies)