Enlarge / A raccoon canine on the Chapultpec Zoo in Mexico Metropolis on August 6, 2015. (credit score: Getty | ALFREDO ESTRELLA/)
Newly obtained genetic knowledge from the Chinese language Middle for Illness Management and Prevention (China CDC) hyperlinks the pandemic coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 to animals—particularly raccoon canines—on the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, the place the earliest COVID-19 circumstances centered, a bunch of unbiased scientists instructed the World Well being Group this week.
The genetic knowledge got here from environmental swabs collected on the market by China CDC in January of 2020. The existence of those swabs was beforehand recognized, as was the truth that they have been constructive for SARS-CoV-2 genetic materials. However in late January of this yr, scientists at China CDC uploaded—after which later eliminated—extra genetic knowledge from these swabs to a public genetic database known as GISAID, the WHO mentioned. That extra knowledge, which had not been beforehand disclosed, signifies that the SARS-CoV-2-positive swabs additionally contained genetic materials from people and animals, significantly massive quantities of genetic materials that carefully matches that of raccoon canines.
Raccoon canines—foxlike animals whose faces carefully resemble these of raccoons—are recognized to be vulnerable to SARS-CoV-2 an infection and have been recognized to be offered on the market.
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