New Delhi: International team of scientists has identified 18 mammalian viruses, which pose a high risk to humans and domestic animals from China’s infamous wet markets. China has maintained that the first cases of SARS-CoV-2 likely emerged from animal to human transmission at a wet market in Wuhan.
In the study, researchers from China, the US, Belgium, and Australia claimed to have unearthed game animals that are commonly hunted or consumed as an exotic food in China, and have been potential reservoirs for SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2.
Edward Holmes – co-author of the study and an evolutionary biologist at the University of Sydney said that “Wildlife trade and live animal markets are a pandemic accident waiting to happen.”
The team also examined many species for the first time, some of which have been banned by the Chinese government for trading or artificial breeding since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.
They performed an analysis of 1,725 game animals, representing 16 species and five mammalian orders, sampled across China.
The origins of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, which has so far resulted in 253.6 million cases of infections and 5.11 million deaths, have been linked with a seafood market in Wuhan.
“From this, we identified 71 mammalian viruses, with 45 described for the first time. Eighteen viruses were considered as potentially high risk to humans and domestic animals,” said corresponding author Shuo Su from the College of Veterinary Medicine at Nanjing Agricultural University in China.
(_Vinayak)