By Dingaan Mithi
For many months, there has been speculation on the possible origins of Covid-19. While there is no conclusive proof or evidence as to where exactly the virus originated from, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) blamed the Chinese government, pointing to a laboratory leakage of the virus, a new report by public health experts finds that Covid-19 could have originated in raccoon dogs.
On 4 March 2023, scientists discovered accessions posted publicly on the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data (GISAID), a global science initiative and primary source established in 2008 that provides access to genomic data of influenza viruses and the coronavirus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic.
On the GISAID database, scientists looked at corresponding sequences from environmental samples collected at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, Wuhan. On 9 March, the scientists realized that those accessions were associated with raw metagenomic sequence read data files.
We downloaded the public data to search for genetic sequences from non-human animals, which the Chinese Centers for Disease Control (CCDC) did not identify in their February 2022 preprint. The preprint also posited that all SARS-CoV-2-positive samples in the market were the result of human infections, claiming that the market was a site of amplification of an already widespread epidemic. We and others therefore had urgently requested release of the data. The potential for analysis of samples for animal DNA had also been recommended in the mission report of the World Health Organization (WHO)-convened global study of origins of SARS-CoV-2: China Part, released March 2021” reads part of the report
The report’s analysis of the data found that genetic evidence of multiple animal species was present in locations of the market where SARS-CoV-2 positive environmental samples had been collected. This includes raccoon dogs, which are susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection and shed sufficient virus to transmit to other species.
The report’s findings are in sharp contradiction with FBI’s assertions that Covid-19 most likely originated in a Chinese government-controlled lab as Christopher Wray, head of FBI stated earlier in the past weeks.
“The FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident,” Wray told Fox News.
It is the first public confirmation of the FBI’s classified judgement of how the pandemic virus emerged. Many scientists point out there is no evidence that it leaked from a lab. The White House has said there is no consensus across the US government on the origins. A joint China-World Health Organization (WHO) investigation in 2021 called the lab leak theory “extremely unlikely”.
However, World Health Organization (WHO) Director General, Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus called for a new inquiry, saying: “All hypotheses remain open and require further study.
According to the report’s authors, Alexander Crits-Christoph, Karthik Gangavarapu and Jonathan E. Pekar, once the data were identified on GISAID, it became possible to test the veracity of claims that there was human animal spill over.
They found information that was critical to understanding the nature of the origins of the human infections at the Huanan market, as this was the early epicenter of SARS-CoV-2 spread and was likely where spill over occurred and sustained human-to-human transmission was established
“Although live mammals had previously been observed at Huanan market in late 2019, their exact locations were not conclusively known, and some of the animal species we identify in the report were not included in the list of live or dead animals tested at the Huanan market, as reported in the 2021 WHO-China joint report on the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our results show that they were present. In some cases, the amount of animal genetic material was greater than the amount of human genetic material, consistent with the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in these samples being due to animal infections” authors of the report explain
The scientists further claim that after conducting independent data analysis, they identified genetic material from a variety of wildlife species in the sequenced samples. They found that the RNA and/or DNA sequence reads from susceptible animals were at the highest frequency in wildlife stalls in the southwest corner of the market.
In the quadrant of the market was where most SARS-CoV-2 environmental RNA got detected, live mammals were being sold. For multiple samples, mitochondrial nucleic acids from susceptible, or potentially susceptible, animals, including raccoon dogs, were significantly more abundant than human mitochondrial nucleic acids.
The report’s findings point out the need for countries across the globe to collaborate in detecting and investigating diseases early and swiftly, before they break out or morph into pandemics. The World Health Organization is clearly frustrated that the politicisation of research into Covid’s origins makes scientific work harder.
“If any country has information about the origins of the pandemic, it’s essential for that information to be shared with WHO and the international scientific community,” the WHO director general, Ghebreyesus was quoted
In particular, scientists published two extensive, peer-reviewed papers in Science in July 2022, offering the strongest evidence to date that the COVID-19 pandemic originated in animals at a market in Wuhan, China. Specifically, they conclude that the coronavirus most likely jumped from a caged wild animal into people at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, where a huge COVID-19 outbreak began in December 2019.
