Dr. Peter Ben Embarek from the World Well being Group (WHO) was talking throughout a press convention in Wuhan, China, on the finish of a four-week mission to town the place the brand new coronavirus first emerged in December 2019.
“Our preliminary findings recommend that the introduction by way of an middleman host species is the almost definitely pathway and one that can require extra research and extra particular focused analysis”, he mentioned.
Joint professional staff
The worldwide staff convened by WHO consisted of 17 Chinese language specialists and an equal variety of counterparts from different nations, three areas: epidemiology, molecular analysis and animal and setting.
They visited hospitals and different websites in Wuhan, together with the Huanan Market the place the SARS-CoV-2 virus was first detected, and recognized 4 major hypotheses of the way it may have been transmitted to people.
“Nonetheless, the findings recommend that the laboratory incident speculation is extraordinarily unlikely to clarify introduction of the virus into the human inhabitants, and due to this fact shouldn’t be a speculation that means to recommend future research into our work, to help our future work, into the understanding of the origin of the virus”, Dr. Embarek mentioned.
Frozen meals hyperlink?
Whereas ongoing analysis continues to recommend that bats are a pure reservoir for the brand new coronavirus, Dr, Embarek dominated out the chance in Wuhan, as town shouldn’t be close to to any environments the place these animals are discovered.
One speculation suggests the virus may have come by way of the meals chain, as frozen merchandise can present a floor for transmission.
Dr. Embarek mentioned frozen animal merchandise, primarily seafood, have been offered at Huanan Market, together with merchandise made out of wild and farmed animals, a few of which got here from different components of China or have been imported.
“So, there’s the potential to proceed to observe this lead and additional take a look at the availability chain and animals that have been provided to the markets in frozen and different processed and semi-processed type, or uncooked type”, he mentioned.
Virus circulating elsewhere earlier
It has been almost a 12 months because the COVID-19 pandemic was declared and as of Tuesday, there have been greater than 106 million instances worldwide, together with some 2.3 million deaths.
The investigations performed in Wuhan will lay the groundwork for virus origin tracing elsewhere, based on the staff’s Chinese language lead, Dr. Liang Wannian.
He mentioned their assessment of unpublished research suggests the virus was circulating earlier in different areas.
“These research from totally different international locations suggests SARS-CoV-2 circulation previous the preliminary detection of instances by a number of weeks”, mentioned Dr. Liang, talking by way of an interpreter.
“A few of the suspected constructive samples have been detected even sooner than the primary case reported. This means the opportunity of the missed reported circulation in different areas.”
Dr. Liang added that analysis additionally discovered “no indication” of virus transmission in Wuhan within the interval earlier than December 2019.
