[ad_1]
Peter Daszak, a New York zoologist supporting a mission supported by the World Health Organization (WHO), said he hopes the key findings will be announced before his scheduled departure for February 10.
Speaking from the central city of Wuhan, where COVID-19 broke out in December 2019, the man said a fourteen-member group worked with experts in China, visiting key focal points and research centers to reveal “some real facts about what what happened”.
Researchers are seeking to determine how the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the most genetically similar virus found in bats more than 1,600 kilometers away, suddenly spread in Wuhan and caused the worst viral crisis in more than a century. According to Daszak, this study of them heralds a turning point in the fight against the pandemic.
“Hopefully we will start to have a very clear understanding of what has happened, which will allow us to prevent a new crisis,” Daszak said Friday night during the Zoom program. – Our most important task is to try to understand why such things happen to avoid regular global economic crises and terrible mortality in the future while we wait for vaccines. It just isn’t a case where the future can be predicted by logical reasoning. “
Worldwide, COVID-19 has created more than 105.7 million jobs. infections, 2.3 million. deceased.
In May, WHO was asked to help “identify the zoonotic origin of the virus and its route to human populations, including the possible role of intermediate hosts.”
Peteris daszakas
Laboratory virus theory
The unclear pathway of the virus from bats to humans has fueled speculation, rejected by Daszak and many other scientists, that the virus may have escaped the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the ultimate biosafety laboratory for coronavirus-derived coronaviruses. .
The researchers visited the lab and asked Shi Zhengli, who has been researching viruses for more than a decade, about the research and the first cases of coronavirus infections.
“Show range”
“We really have to look at the full range of key aspects of the study,” Daszak said. – It must be duly recognized that the experts who have received us here in China have been doing the same in recent months. They work in a non-positive way, gathering information, analyzing it and preparing it ”. The work is based on collaboration, with Chinese colleagues helping mission researchers get to the bottom, he said.
“We check the information with them every day, research new data and then inform them that we wanted to go to key places,” said the British scientist. – They asked for a list. We suggest where we think we should go and which people to meet. We went to every place on the list, they really agreed to share the information in good faith. “
Mr Dazszak is one of ten independent experts assisting in the WHO mission. Also in attendance are five Agency staff, two each from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) in Paris.
Connecting threads
The mission worked in three groups, focusing on the possible role of animals in the process, the epidemiology or spread of the disease, and conclusions based on environmental samples. The genetic sequence data is helping researchers identify threads that link information about patients and wildlife, Daszak said.
“It seems to me that we will be able to provide some valuable information at the end of this trip, very valuable information, but I would not like to specify what the information will be or what the possible address will be,” he said. confidential.
Daszak, delving into the role of animals, said his trip to Juan’s live food market in central Wuhan was particularly rewarding.
China’s so-called “wet markets” sell mainly seafood, as well as fresh meat, wild game and locally slaughtered wildlife. It became the focus of the initial outbreak, with infections among workers and buyers, so it was thought that this was where the virus could pass from animal to human.
Peteris daszakas
“Important clues”
Subsequent investigations have identified initial cases among people unrelated to the bazaar, undermining that theory. Investigators continued to search and found “relevant evidence” related to the role of the market, Daszak said, declining to detail the information.
“We are currently trying to combine all the available facts into one whole,” he said. – We examine the three threads separately. Now we will try to link them and then we will see what will come of it. “
Although the food market was closed and cleaned up almost immediately after the cases were confirmed, “it is still relatively intact,” Deszek said. “People were in a hurry and left equipment, tools, left evidence of what was happening, and that is what we were investigating,” said the expert.
Scientists in China, taking environmental samples from the market itself, have identified sites where traces of SARS-CoV-2 have been detected, he said. The researchers also benefited from a deeper understanding of COVID-19, a better understanding of the disease.
“We now know what we didn’t know at the time: that for each ailment, there were asymptomatic forms or forms that are difficult to distinguish from a cold or cough,” Darszak said. – Therefore, it was not entirely unexpected that there will be cases different from those in which you ended up in hospitals. But how many of them, when did it all start? We are still working on that. “
The virus’s path runs through “confusing mazes,” and tracing that journey is difficult and will take “a long time,” Daszak said. “From what I’ve already seen, I can say that there are some real facts about what happened. And I hope that at the end of this trip we will be able to give a strong and convincing explanation, ”he said.
Peteris daszakas
[ad_2]
