Data from the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, briefly uploaded to a global database by Chinese scientists, provides crucial information about the origins of the outbreak, including an animal market in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the researchers said. .
The virus was first identified in Wuhan in December 2019, with many suspecting the Huanan Live Animal Market as the source, before spreading across the globe, killing nearly 7 million people.
The scientists released a preliminary report based on their interpretation of the data on Monday, following media leaks last week and a meeting with the World Health Organization, which urged China to release more information.
The data from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is no longer available in the GISAID database where the scientists found it: it briefly appeared in a public database before being removed on March 11.
The data produced by the Chinese scientists revealed new sequences of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and additional genomic data based on samples taken from a live animal market in Wuhan in 2020, according to the scientists who accessed it.
The sequences showed that raccoon dogs and other animals susceptible to the coronavirus were present at the market and could have been infected, providing a new clue in the chain of transmission that eventually reached humans, they said.
"This adds to the evidence identifying the Huanan market as the place of spread of Sars-CoV-2 and the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic," the report said.
It was written by authors including Michael Worobey of the University of Arizona, Kristian Andersen of Scripps Research in La Jolla, California, and Florence Débarre of the Sorbonne University in Paris, France, who accessed the data.
Compared to the information leaked last week, the report adds more details about other animals on the market, as well as showing that some of the environmental samples positive for SARS-CoV-2 had more animal than human genetic material, which researchers identify as evidence of the origin of infected animals.
WHO officials said last week that the information was inconclusive, but represented a new lead in the investigation into the origins of COVID, and should have been shared immediately.
The UN agency said earlier that all hypotheses about the origins of COVID-19 remain on the table, including that the virus emerged from a high-security laboratory in Wuhan that studies dangerous pathogens.
China denies any such link. The WHO has also said that most evidence points to the virus coming from animals, probably bats.
