Ajit Karn
The WHO questioned the Chinese official on Friday (Local Time) regarding the reasons why the data was not disclosed three years ago and why, after being published online in January, it could not be located now. An international squad of virus experts downloaded and began analysing the research prior to the data’s disappearance from the Internet. The team revealed that the data supports the hypothesis that the pandemic may have originated from unlawfully traded raccoon dogs, which infected humans at the Wuhan Hunan Seafood Wholesale Market in China.
The gene sequences were withdrawn from a scientific database after the experts offered to collaborate with their Chinese counterparts on the analysis, preventing the team from reaching the final conclusion.
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO’s director general, stated, “These data could have been shared three years ago and should have been.” He stated that the missing evidence “must be shared immediately with the international community.”
According to the expert team examining the data, the study provides evidence that raccoon dogs, fox-like animals known to spread coronaviruses, left DNA at the same location in the Wuhan market where genetic signatures of the new coronavirus were discovered.
According to some specialists, this indicates that the animals may have been infected and may have transmitted the virus to humans.
Virus experts have been eagerly anticipating the release of the genetic data gathered from swabs of animal enclosures, carts, and other surfaces at the Wuhan market in early 2020, ever since they learned about it in a Chinese scientific paper published a year prior.
In the meantime, a French biologist discovered genetic sequences in the database last week, and her team began searching for traces of the pandemic’s origin.
This group has not yet published a report detailing its findings. This week, however, the researchers presented an analysis of the material to a WHO advisory committee examining the origins of Covid during a meeting that also featured a presentation by Chinese researchers on the same data.
Sarah Cobey, an epidemiologist and evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago, states that the analysis appears to be distinct from what China has presented.
According to media Cobey, who was not involved in the latest analysis, stated that the analysis appeared to contradict earlier claims by Chinese scientists that samples taken from the market that were positive for the coronavirus were brought in by only sick individuals.
“It’s highly improbable to find so much animal DNA, especially raccoon dog DNA, in viral samples if the contamination is predominantly human,” Dr. Cobey stated.
There are still unanswered questions regarding how the samples were collected, what they contained precisely, and why the evidence had vanished. In light of the ambiguities, numerous scientists responded with caution, stating that it was difficult to evaluate the research without a comprehensive report.
In recent weeks, the idea that a lab accident may have inadvertently sparked the pandemic has received renewed attention, thanks in part to a new intelligence assessment from the Department of Energy and hearings led by the newly elected Republican leadership of the House of Representatives.
According to report , a number of virus experts who were not involved in the most recent analysis stated that what was known about the market samples bolstered the argument that animals sold there were the source of the pandemic.
“It’s exactly what you’d expect if the virus emerged from intermediate or multiple intermediate hosts in the market,” Dr. Cobey said, adding, “Ecologically, I believe this case is close to being resolved.”
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Dr. Cobey was one of 18 scientists who signed an influential letter published in the journal Science in May 2021, imploring serious consideration of a scenario in which the virus could have escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan.
