Virus believed originally to have been in bats
WELLINGTON: Scientists in
China have confirmed the deadly coronavirus outbreak first jumped from animals to humans inside the Huanan Seafood Wholesale
Market in the heart of Wuhan’s city centre.
The Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention said it successfully isolated the new coronavirus in the samples from the market, indicating that the virus stemmed from wild animals on sale there.
‘‘We don’t have all the details, but these viruses are present in wild species,’’ David Hayman, a professor of infectious disease ecology at Massey University who specialises in zoonotic diseases, said yesterday.
This virus probably had its original ancestry in bats.
In these markets, at some point, the viruses were either spread directly to people or to another species and then went on to spread to a human, he said.
‘‘One of the things that we understand is actually there is a very large range of viruses that circulate in animals.
‘‘In particular, for example, bats, where we think this one had its origins. The question is: which ones are going to lead to ongoing infections?
‘‘In these markets where you have multiple species, you’re having these unnatural situations where you’ve got stressed animals that are having contact with other animals that they may not normally have. So you’re really increasing the chance of an infection going from one species to another.’’
One of the ‘‘really worrying things’’ about coronavirus was it had been shown to be transmitted between people.
‘‘It’s very clear from the genetics that have been done on the virus that there was one leap from some animal to humans, and now that ongoing transmission is human to human. That’s the real concern.’’
What was also concerning was that people were potentially spreading the virus before showing symptoms of it.
‘‘That makes it quite hard to control,’’ Prof Hayman said.
He also said viruses such as coronavirus were mutating ‘‘all the time’’.
‘‘If it transmits among humans for a long period of time, it could get better at transmitting between people because of some other adaptation to people, so that’s one of the concerns.’’
He said the virus was ‘‘disconcerting’’.
‘‘Compared to viruses with similar transmission rates, it does have a high casefatality rate.’’
However, similar events had been stopped in the past, for example, Sars, he said. — RNZ