[ad_1]
All available evidence indicates that the coronavirus, which has sickened more than 56 million people around the world, may have been first identified in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, but did not start there, according to one of the leading scientists. from the country.
“Wuhan was where the coronavirus was first detected, but it was not where it originated,” Zeng Guang, former chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said at an online academic conference on Thursday. .
Zeng is the second senior Chinese epidemiologist to have weighed in on the controversial issue in recent weeks.
Wu Zunyou, the CDC’s current chief epidemiologist, made a similar suggestion last week, saying the pathogen could have entered the country in imports of frozen seafood or meat products.
The comments come as a team assembled by the World Health Organization investigates the origins of the coronavirus. The mission, which began late last month, began with online meetings between Chinese scientists and the WHO team, and was expected to include field investigations at a later stage.
Speaking at the conference hosted by US publisher Cell Press and the Beijing Municipal Commission for Science and Technology, Zeng said he cited an Italian study that suggested that Sars-CoV-2, the official name of the coronavirus, was circulating among asymptomatic people in Italy months before. It was reported in Wuhan in December 2019.
The study found that specific antibodies against Sars-CoV-2 were detected in blood samples collected in a lung cancer screening assay between September 2019 and March this year.
According to peer-reviewed research, 11.6 percent of the 959 healthy volunteers had developed antibodies to the coronavirus before February.
In Milan on Thursday, Italian researchers said their study does not “discuss” the origins of the coronavirus.
[[nid:500999]]“These findings simply document that the epidemic in China was not detected in time,” said Giovanni Apolone, scientific director of the National Cancer Institute and a co-author of the study.
At the online conference, Zeng said the coronavirus was first detected in Wuhan thanks to the establishment of a pneumonia monitoring system established in the wake of the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or Sars, 17 years ago.
“China has built a world-leading monitoring system to report unknown pneumonia since the Sars outbreak in 2003. We are always on high alert,” he said. “Thanks to this system, we can become the first in the world to identify Covid-19.”
China has said that the Italian study and other similar research shows that the origins of the virus are a complex scientific issue, and origin tracing is an ongoing process that can involve many countries.
“China will continue to participate in global scientific research to trace the origin and route of transmission of the virus, and will work with the rest of the international community to contribute to global cooperation in the fight against Covid-19 and other viruses,” he said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China. spokesman Zhao Lijian said Tuesday.
Additional information from Reuters
For the latest updates on the coronavirus, visit here.
This article was first published on the South China Morning Post.
