The researchers who unexpectedly stumbled over the genetic data say that it supports -- but cannot definitively prove -- the theory that the virus originated in animals, possibly first jumping over to humans at the market in the city of Wuhan.
The data comes from swabs collected by a Chinese team in January and February 2020 at the Huanan Seafood Market, the site of one of the earliest Covid clusters, before it was shut down and cleared of animals. Debarre and colleagues informed the WHO about their discovery last week, when some media outlets started reporting on the data's existence.This week the researchers published a report, which has not been peer-reviewed, saying that DNA from the samples shows that raccoon dogs, palm civets, Amur hedgehogs and bamboo rats were present at the market.
Notably, there was very little human DNA in one of the positive samples, raising the likelihood that it was the raccoon dog that had the virus. The data is "one additional piece of the puzzle that supports an origin of the pandemic linked to Wuhan's animal trade," said virologist Connor Bamford of Queen's University Belfast.Data still missing
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