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Coronavirus pandemic
ChinaScience

Hunt for Covid-19 origins: questions surface over China’s testing of suspect animals

  • WHO confirmed supply chains were identified for animals sold in Wuhan, based on the view that the virus may have first infected traded wildlife
  • But these routes were seemingly not traced back to farms and breeders, and team members say it’s the ‘next step’ in the investigation

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Members of the WHO team investigating the origins of the coronavirus visit the closed Huanan seafood wholesale market in Wuhan on January 31. Photo: AFP
Simone McCarthy
In the hunt for the source of the Covid-19 disease, the World Health Organization confirmed China identified supply chains for animals sold in Wuhan, where the first known outbreak occurred, a move based on the view the virus may have first infected traded wildlife.

But identifying the supply networks is the first step, the next is to run comprehensive, targeted tests of animals and people involved to try and trace the path of the virus before the outbreak more than 12 months ago.

To the puzzlement of some overseas experts, China’s authorities seemingly failed to follow up with this testing in supply routes leading back to farms and animal breeders in certain regions of the country.

While an official report from a 28-day fact-finding mission to Wuhan led by the WHO has yet to be released, team members in official comments and media reports have said such testing was the “next step” in the investigation.

“Some of the trace-back was in farms or in traders in regions that are known to harbour bats with the closest related viruses [to the one that causes Covid-19],” virologist Marion Koopmans said in Wuhan at the close of the WHO mission on February 9. “So it is really seen as an entry point … for taking the next step of surveys in animals on farms.”

WHO team member Peter Daszak told CNN that no one had been to farms of interest in China. Photo: Kyodo
WHO team member Peter Daszak told CNN that no one had been to farms of interest in China. Photo: Kyodo

Another team member, disease ecologist Peter Daszak, said in an interview with CNN that scientists had not gone to farms of interest in southern China.

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