Jul 28, 2022 17:00:00

Research results show that the new coronavirus originated from two or more strains infecting humans at the wholesale market in Wuhan City at about the same time.

According to a study by the University of California, San Diego, the origin of the new coronavirus, which occurred at the end of 2019 and became a global epidemic in a blink of an eye, originated from the

Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China. The research team announced. According to the research team, at least two strains of the new coronavirus appear to have infected humans working or shopping in the market from live animal hosts.

The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was the early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8715

Coronavirus Jumped to Humans at Least Twice at Market in Wuhan, China
https://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/pressrelease/coronavirus-jumped-to-humans-at-least-twice-at-market-in-wuhan-china

Since the WHO (World Health Organization) approved the pandemic of the new coronavirus in March 2020, more than 560 million cases of new coronavirus infection have been confirmed worldwide, and more than 6.3 million people have died. It is said that it is. Associate Professor Joel Wertheim of the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine said, 'Understanding how a pandemic begins can prevent a pandemic in the future, so it is possible to know where the origin of the new coronavirus is. It's important to know as much as possible. '

Experts agreed that the new coronavirus originated in the Huanan Seafood Market, but the research team should also identify how the virus was transmitted from non-human hosts to humans. ..

As a result of analysis by the research team based on the sample collected on the market in 2020 and the data and location of infected people, the early new coronavirus is distinguished into two strains by the difference in

RNA sequence. One of them, strain B, was found in people who worked or shopped in the market, and the other strain A was found in infected people near the market, and it seems that strain A has spread throughout China. I am.

Until now, it was thought that animals became infected with humans at the stage of evolution from strain A to strain B, or from strain B to strain A. However, the first zoonotic coronavirus may have occurred in strain B in late November 2019, while strain A may have occurred within a few weeks of the first outbreak. And that. In addition, the research team deciphered the evolutionary rate of the genome and found that strain A and strain B were likely to have spread in the Huanan Seafood Market at the same time.

Associate Professor Wertheim said, 'The fact that the two strains originated from the Huanan Seafood Market at the same time can explain that the new coronavirus showed genomic diversity from the early pandemic. At the same time, the new coronavirus came from the Huanan Seafood Market. The theory that it leaked from a virus laboratory a few kilometers away is also denied. '