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Wildlife farms in southern China seek to be the most likely source of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a member of the World Health Organization research team.
Peter Daszak was among the WHO-led team of experts that traveled to China this year to try to answer questions about the origins of the coronavirus pandemic. He is also a disease ecologist and president of the EcoHealth Alliance.
It was during this trip that experts found evidence that wildlife farms were supplying animals to vendors at the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, he said. NPR in an interview on Tuesday (New Zealand time).
These farms, which included farms in southern China’s Yunnan Province, were part of a unique project that government agencies had been promoting for some 20 years that helped increase the income of rural populations living in the area. poverty. NPR reported.
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Life for Wuhan residents has gradually returned to normal since the massive outbreak in the area in December 2019.
“They take exotic animals, like civets, porcupines, pangolins, raccoon dogs and bamboo rats, and raise them in captivity,” Daszak said.
Scientists believe that bats were the most likely carriers of the virus and that they passed it on to another animal, which then passed it on to humans.
Since then, farms have been closed in the wake of the pandemic. Daszak said NPR that the fact that the farms were closed was a strong sign that the government thought the farms were a likely avenue for a bat coronavirus in southern China to reach humans.
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A resident wears a mask while traveling through Wuhan, Hubei province, China, in February 2021.
“I think SARS-CoV-2 was first introduced to people from southern China. It looks that way, “Daszak said. NPR.
“China closes that road for a reason,” Daszak was reported to have said, adding that the reason was that “they believed this was the most likely route.” And when the WHO report is published … we believe that it is also the most likely route ”.
By Han Guan / AP
Peter Ben Embarek, from a team of experts from the World Health Organization, photographed speaking with journalists at the end of the mission to investigate the origins of the coronavirus pandemic in Wuhan.
The WHO-led team of international experts visited Wuhan in January, launching a month-long investigation into the origins of the pandemic.
His highly anticipated report on the investigation is expected to be released this week. The report is expected to include a number of research areas and possible hypotheses, such as the “cold chain” hypothesis, the idea that transmission could have occurred through frozen food.
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Members of a delegation from the World Health Organization (WHO) photographed in Wuhan during their investigations.
While there may not yet be a direct answer on how the virus started, Daszak said in a webinar last week that: “I am confident that we will find out fairly soon. In the coming years, we are going to have really meaningful data on where it came from and how it came about. “
He said it should be possible for collective scientific data to pinpoint how animals with the coronavirus infected the first people in Wuhan in December 2019. CNBC reported.
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A view of the Huanan Seafood Market photographed on February 9, 2021 in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China.
Australian Microbiologist Dr. Dominic Dwyer was also among the team of experts that traveled to Wuhan. In a review article he wrote in February, he said his investigations concluded that the virus was most likely of animal origin.
It probably passed to humans from bats, through a still unknown intermediary animal, in an unknown location, he wrote. These “zoonotic” diseases have triggered pandemics before. But researchers were still working to confirm the exact chain of events that led to the current pandemic.
