Analysis of samples taken more than three years ago from the market connected to the Covid-19 epidemic has been published by a research team in China.
The focus of the coronavirus origin investigation has been the Huanan seafood and wildlife market.
Yet, this is the initial, peer-reviewed analysis of biological data collected from the market in 2020.
That could offer up new avenues of research into how the outbreak started by connecting the virus with animals that were sold in the market.
According to the study, swabs that tested positive for the virus also had wild animal genetic material in them.
This, according to some scientists, is more proof that the disease was initially spread from an infected animal to a human.
Others, however, have cautioned against drawing conclusions too quickly, and it is still unknown why it took three years for the genetic makeup of the samples to be made public.
Another explanation holds that the virus unintentionally escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan.
No conclusive evidence
The Chinese research team published an early draught of their paper online in February 2022, but they chose not to share the complete genetic data that was present in the market samples.
After discovering that the DNA sequences had been published on a platform for exchanging scientific data, a different worldwide group of researchers provided their own assessment of what those important market swabs had shown in March of this year.
Further significant information regarding the contents of those samples, which were taken from stalls, surfaces, cages, and equipment inside the market, is included in this latest analysis, which has been verified by other scientists before being published in the journal Nature.
According to the article by the Chinese research team, several samples that were taken from places where wildlife was being sold had tested positive for the virus.
However, their investigation revealed that live animals, particularly raccoon dogs, who are now known to be vulnerable to the virus, were being sold there.
But, the Chinese experts have noted that these findings don’t provide conclusive evidence of how the disease began.
The report says that “these ambient samples cannot demonstrate that the animals were sick.”
It continues to be a possibility that a person afflicted with the virus rather than an animal introduced it to the market.
Since SARS-CoV-2 first appeared in 2020, Prof. David Robertson of the University of Glasgow has been conducting genomic research into the virus’s ancestry.
The most crucial development, he told BBC News, is that this extremely significant dataset is now released and open for use by others.
However, he continued that the samples’ contents provided “compelling proof that the animals there were likely infected with the virus.”
The entire body of evidence, he said, was crucial.
“There is solid indication that this is where a spillover from an animal in the market occurred when you combine it with the fact that the early Covid-19 instances in Wuhan are linked to the market.”
Have we discovered Covid’s “animal origin”?
FBI chief: Covid origin likely a China lab incident. Covid origin studies claim there is market proof.
The findings were released at a time when there are indications that US authorities are beginning to accept the lab leak explanation.
The FBI and US Department of Energy both stated that they now consider that scenario to be the “most plausible,” despite the Chinese government’s vehement denials that the virus originated in a research facility.
The mystery has been investigated by a number of US departments and agencies, with varying results. However, on March 1, the FBI director accused Beijing of “doing its best to try to thwart and obfuscate,” and revealed that the bureau had been persuaded of the lab leak theory “for quite some time now.”
Some experts have expressed frustration that the FBI has not released its findings.
The BBC has gotten in touch with the report’s principal investigator at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC) in Beijing for a response.