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(CNN) – Researchers at the World Health Organization (WHO) investigating the origins of the coronavirus in China have discovered indications that the outbreak was much more widespread in Wuhan in December 2019 than previously thought, and are seeking urgent access to Hundreds of thousands of blood samples from the city that China has not allowed them to examine until now.
The principal investigator of the WHO mission, Peter Ben Embarek, told CNN in an extensive interview that the mission had found several signs of the broader spread of 2019, including the establishment for the first time that there were more than a dozen of virus strains in Wuhan as early as December. The team also had the opportunity to speak with the first patient that Chinese authorities said had been infected, an office worker in his 40s with no notable travel history, reported infected on December 8.
The slow emergence of more detailed data collected on the WHO’s long-awaited trip to China may add to concerns voiced by other scientists studying the origins of the disease that may have spread in China long before its first official appearance in mid-1990. December.
Embarek, who has just returned to Switzerland from Wuhan, told CNN: “The virus was widely circulating in Wuhan in December, which is a new finding.”
The WHO food safety specialist added that Chinese scientists had presented the team with 174 cases of coronavirus in and around Wuhan in December 2019. Of these 100 had been confirmed by laboratory tests, he said, and another 74 through diagnosis. clinical patient. symptom.
Embarek said it was possible that this increased number, of probably serious cases that had been noticed by Chinese doctors from the beginning, meant that the disease could have affected as many as 1,000 people in Wuhan in December.
“We haven’t made any models of that since then,” he said. “But we know … in large numbers … of the infected population, about 15% end up with severe cases and the vast majority are mild cases.”
Embarek said the mission, which included 17 WHO and 17 Chinese scientists, had expanded the type of virus genetic material they examined from the first coronavirus cases on December 1. This allowed them to look at partial genetic samples, rather than just complete ones, he said. As a result, they were able to collect 13 different genetic sequences from the SARS-COV-2 virus for the first time as of December 2019. The sequences, if examined with broader data from patients in China during 2019, could provide valuable clues about geography. . and the time of the outbreak before December.
Embarek said: “Some of them are from the markets … Some of them are not tied to the markets,” which includes the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, which is believed to have played a role in the first spread of the virus. “This is something that we found as part of our mission … part of the interaction we all had together.”
Variations Raise Broader Questions
Changes in the genetic makeup of a virus are common and normally harmless, and they occur over time as the disease moves and reproduces between people or animals. Embarek declined to draw any conclusions about what the 13 strains might have meant for the history of the disease before December.
But the discovery of so many different possible variants of the virus could suggest that it had been circulating for more than that month, as some virologists previously suggested. This genetic material is probably the first physical evidence to emerge internationally to support such a theory.
Professor Edward Holmes, a virologist at the University of Sydney, Australia, said: “As there was already genetic diversity in the SARS-CoV-2 sequences sampled in Wuhan in December 2019, it is likely that the virus has been circulating in a time. longer than that month alone. “
Holmes, who has carefully studied the emergence of the virus, said these 13 sequences could indicate that the virus spread for some time undetected before the December outbreak in Wuhan. “These data dovetail with other analyzes that the virus emerged in the human population before December 2019 and that there was a period of cryptic transmission before it was first detected in the Huanan market.”
The WHO team held a three-hour press conference together with their Chinese counterparts in Wuhan to present their findings last week. Since then, more details have emerged about the precise data they had access to, and sometimes they didn’t.
Embarek said that the mission was analyzed by Chinese scientists of 92 suspected cases of Covid-19 from October and November 2019, patients who had symptoms similar to those of Covid and were seriously ill. The WHO team called for these 92 to be tested in January this year for antibodies. Of these, 67 agreed to be tested and all came back negative, Embarek said. He added that further testing is needed as it is unclear whether the antibodies remain in former Covid-19 patients until a year later.
However, the way these 92 cases were distributed in those two months and in Hubei geographically also intrigued Embarek, he said. Embarek said the 92, as they were presented to the WHO team, did not emerge in clusters as is common in disease outbreaks. Instead, they were spaced in small numbers in both months and throughout Hubei province, where Wuhan is located.
“There were no groups in particular places,” he said. “That would have been picked up.” It is unclear if these 92 cases were related to the coronavirus and what this lack of clustering might indicate.
Embarek also said that the mission was able to meet the first Covid-19 patient that China claimed to know. A Wuhan resident in his 40s, the man has not been identified and had no recent travel history.
“It has no link to the markets,” Embarek said. “We also talked to him. He has a very, somewhat boring and normal life, no hiking in the mountains. He was an office worker in a private company.”
China promises cooperation
China has promised transparency with the WHO investigation. In response to criticism from the United States that it should provide access to its previous raw data, the Chinese Embassy in Washington DC said: “What the United States has done in recent years has seriously undermined multilateral institutions, including the WHO, and has seriously damaged international cooperation on COVID. 19, “a spokesman for the Chinese embassy in the United States said in the statement.
“But the United States, acting as if none of this has ever happened, is pointing the finger at other countries that have faithfully supported WHO and WHO itself,” the statement continues.
The WHO team hopes to return to Wuhan in recent months to continue its investigations, Embarek said, although he was unable to provide specific dates for a confirmed trip.
He said the team hopes to urgently examine biological samples that experts say were not available to them on this first trip, specifically thousands of samples from the Wuhan blood donor bank dating back two years.
“There are around 200,000 samples available there that are now secured and could be used for a new set of studies,” Embarek said. “It would be great if we could [work] with that.”
Embarek said there could be technical difficulties in accessing those samples. “We understand that these samples are extremely small samples and are only used for litigation purposes,” he said. “There is no mechanism that allows for routine studies with this type of sample.”
He said that some other biological test samples that might have proved useful during the Wuhan mission were also not available to them. “Many of the samples were discarded after a few months or weeks, depending on the purpose for which they were taken,” he said.
Embarek said the circumstances of the mission, of intense quarantine periods and social distancing, had led to some frustrations, along with global scrutiny of his conduct and findings.
“We were working closely together for a month between two groups of a large group of scientists,” he said. “And of course it is an occasion from time to time … you, as always, among passionate scientists, have a heated discussion and then a discussion about this and that.
“Remember, we’ve had the entire planet on our shoulders 24 hours a day for a month, which doesn’t make it easy for scientists to work.”
This story was first published on CNN.com, “CNN Exclusive: WHO Wuhan Mission Finds Possible Signs Of A Wider Original Outbreak In 2019”
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