A new study found wildlife DNA in samples collected from stalls in the Huanan Seafood Market that tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. The study’s findings were consistent with the hypothesis that COVID-19 emerged from the market.
Chinese health researchers swabbed surfaces from the market in Wuhan, China, and posted the results in the peer reviewed journal Nature.
The new study found gene sequences from raccoon dogs and other animals which can host SARS viruses.
Michael Worobey with the University of Arizona helped to author the study. He says they also did an evolutionary analysis of the virus.
“This one site, again, just one of four places that are selling these these animals that we already worried would be the way that the next pandemic would start. When you do that, you find that essentially the whole evolutionary tree of the early COVID virus was present at that market," he said.
Worobey said the results do not prove the animals were infected, but that it would also be unlikely for there to be so many cases linked to the market if it did not jump from an animal there.
"These viruses had not generated very much genetic diversity and clearly were not around for A really long time just going unnoticed before the market outbreak," Worobey said.
The study was published in the journal Cell.
