A team of Chinese researchers has published the long-awaited analysis of samples obtained more than three years ago from the Wuhan market, from where the COVID-19 epidemic is believed to have started. Even while it stopped short of offering a conclusive finding on the SARS-CoV-2 origin, it gives useful information that may be helpful for further investigation.
The samples, which were taken from market booths, surfaces, cages, and machinery inside the market, were the subject of a recent analysis that was just published in the journal Nature.
According to the study, swabs from the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, linked to the start of the pandemic, included genetic material from wild animals and tested positive for SARS-CoV-2.
“This suggests that it’s possible an animal could have been an intermediate host of a virus that spilled over to infect humans. But researchers say the latest findings still fall short of providing definitive proof that SARS-CoV-2 virus originated from an animal-to-human spillover event,” said the report published in the journal.
The experts are divided over whether the pandemic started in a lab or spread from wild animals to humans.
Nevertheless, according to researchers, genomic data is essential since it will enable further study that can provide hints about the pandemic's origin.
According to evolutionary virologist Jesse Bloom, swabs collected in January 2020 only provide information about the animals that were at the market, so to find the COVID origins they need even earlier samples, Nature reported.
The research is the most recent in a line of assessments of these market samples that have been published, and it is also the first to have undergone peer review.
It has been widely contested whether the outbreak originated naturally, with a virus spreading from animals to people, or as the result of a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Despite the Chinese government's vehement denials that the virus originated in a research facility, the FBI and US Department of Energy both stated that they now consider that scenario to be the "most likely,” BBC reported.
