MELBOURNE (BLOOMBERG) - The best minds in virology are trying to unravel a mystery: How did a lethal coronavirus jump from the wilds of rural China to major human population centres? And what chain of genetic mutations produced a pathogen so perfectly adapted for stealth and mass transmission?. Read more at straitstimes.com.
MELBOURNE - The best minds in virology are trying to unravel a mystery: How did a lethal coronavirus jump from the wilds of rural China to major human population centres? And what chain of genetic mutations produced a pathogen so perfectly adapted for stealth and mass transmission?
Last week, the World Health Organisation sought permission from Beijing to send a new scientific mission for more epidemiological detective work. China, which let a WHO team into the country in early February as its epidemic raged, has not yet signed off. Roughly 70 per cent of emerging infectious diseases in humans are zoonotic, or transmitted from animals to people. Genome sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 shows it's related to two other deadly coronaviruses that originated in bats.
Household pets That raises the disturbing possibility that an unknown animal source is still spreading the disease, known as Covid-19. WHO researchers reported on Friday that household cats can transmit the virus to other felines, though there is no evidence yet that pets can pass it along to humans.
An accidental release from the research centre in Wuhan is possible in theory, but"just so implausible", according to Stanley Perlman, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Iowa, who has visited the facility and rates it highly. US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo has backed off earlier claims of"enormous evidence" that the virus escaped from a Wuhan laboratory.
Another scenario envisions someone closely tied to the wildlife trade bringing infected animals to the Wuhan market. Once the virus reached the flourishing megacity of 11 million, it grew exponentially.
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