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Peter Ben Embarek, the scientist who led the WHO mission, told CNN that he and his colleagues had found signs that the scale of the first outbreak was much larger and that more than a dozen strains of the virus were circulating in Uhane already. in December.
The researchers also had the opportunity to interact with the first patient, according to Chinese officials, who contracted the disease, a 40-year-old office worker who did not travel abroad and was diagnosed on December 8.
More detailed information gathered by WHO scientists on the situation in China may confirm to previously concerned scientists seeking to determine the origin of the disease that the virus could have spread in China long before it became a particularly serious problem. in mid December.
A WHO scientist who returned to Switzerland from China told CNN: “The Wuhan virus was already widespread in December, which is a new discovery.”
A WHO specialist said he and his colleagues in China had received information on 174 coronavirus cases detected in or around Wuhan in 2019 in December. Of these, 100 were confirmed by laboratory tests and another 74 by clinical evaluation of the patients’ symptoms. According to the WHO head of mission, this number of patients (probably serious illnesses that had to be treated by doctors) means that more than 1,000 people could have contracted the coronavirus in Uhan in December.
“We have not yet made models based on these figures, but in general we know that about 15% of the population of people infected. the cases are severe and the vast majority are mild, ”said the head of the investigation team.
The research team consisted of 34 scientists: 17 represented the WHO and another 17 were delegates from China. This group expanded their knowledge of the genetic types of coronavirus circulating in Uhan in December and discovered for the first time that by December 2019 there were already 13 different genetic sequences of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in China. These genetic sequences, when combined with broader data on patients in China in 2019, can provide valuable information on the geography and timing of the disease’s development as early as December.
Questions about the number of options
Genetic variants of a particular virus are common and generally do not pose a major threat: Over time, and as the virus multiplies in humans or animals, genetic changes accumulate all the time. Ben Embarek still does not want to draw any conclusions about what 13 different variants of the virus may mean for the history of the virus in December, but the discovery of such a number of variants offers the possibility that the virus will spread more than a month before its appearance. . discovery, as some virologists thought. The genetic diversity of viruses is probably the first clear evidence presented to the international community to support this theory.
University of Sydney (Australia) virologist prof. Edward Holmes, who studied the origin of the virus in detail, said that 13 strains of the virus are a possible indication that the virus would spread before the first 2019 outbreak in Wuhan in December.
The work of the WHO group in China ended with a three-hour press conference in which both the WHO and Chinese scientists presented their findings last week, but after the conference and the departure of the scientists from China, more details about what the researchers received and what did not.
Ben Embarek said he and his colleagues hoped to analyze biological samples that they did not have access to during their first trip to China. Specifically, there are blood samples stored at the Wuhan Blood Bank that have been collected over the past two years.
“There are around 200,000 samples that are in storage and could be used for a new research kit. It would be great if we had the opportunity to work with them, ”said the head of the WHO research team.
It is true that obtaining these samples is not that simple: the stored samples have a very small volume and are considered only for legal reasons. There is no mechanism to anticipate the use of such samples in research.
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