[ad_1]
“The penalties for offenders may be severe,” said Zhou Zhaomin, an expert on China’s wildlife trade policy at West China Normal University in Nanchong. Those who trade in protected species may face up to 15 years in prison, and if the number is large enough, smuggling them into or out of China may be sentenced to life imprisonment.
But the enforcement of the law is poor. Several researchers told MIT Technology Review that the rampant illegal wildlife trade in China is an “open secret.”
In fact, Zhou and his colleagues conducted A survey Between 2017 and 2019, 38 species of nearly 48,000 wild animals were sold in four markets in Wuhan, including southern China. Almost all of them were live, caged, and stacked in a cramped, unsanitary environment, which is very suitable for virus transmission. . Wild animals or farmed non-domesticated species include species that are susceptible to both SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2, such as civet cats, minks, badgers, and raccoon dogs.
The research was published in June Scientific report, Found that all the wildlife trade investigated by the researchers was illegal. Many vendors sell protected species; no one posted a certificate requesting proof of animal origin or that they were free of disease.
This means that once South China is involved in an early covid-19 case, suppliers that sell live mammals (which are likely to be illegal) will run away to avoid facing imprisonment, and law enforcement agencies are unlikely to admit such cases in the first place. The event once existed. In light of this, it is not surprising that the Chinese authorities have not found clues about the sale of live animals in the South China market, said Hanach of Harvard.
After SARS, restrictions on wildlife trade were minimal, which gave scientists almost unlimited access to animals and traders in the Guangdong wet market-but this was not enough to help them determine the source of SARS.Although they quickly found the virus in civet cats, badgers and raccoon dogs More than 99% same as SARS-CoV-1, Subsequent investigation did not find that the virus spread widely in the wild or under breeding conditions.A mainstream view is The civet caught the virus during the transaction, Most likely from bats that were bought and sold at the same time.
Now, 18 years later, the situation is strikingly similar.There seems to SARS-CoV-2 is not widely spread in animalsThe World Health Organization’s Chinese team conducted approximately 80,000 tests to find the origin of the pandemic—including major suspects such as pangolins, civet cats, badgers, and bamboo rats—and none of the samples contained the virus.
Despite this, many scientists are still heavily inclined to the theory that wet markets played a key role in triggering covid-19. Although everyone’s eyes are focused on Yunnan and other parts of Southeast Asia as the most likely source of the pandemic, Hanage said that it is “not crazy” to think that Hubei Province in Wuhan may be the place where SARS-CoV-2 naturally appears.
In fact, scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology found SARS-like coronavirus in Hubei bats. Although they did not systematically test the coronavirus infection of farmed animals across the province, A little-known study In a study conducted after SARS, they found that the seven civet cats they tested on a farm in the province in 2004 were all infected with SARS-CoV-1 relatives. Several research teams in China and the United States are trying to figure out where these animals were infected with the virus, whether coronavirus infections among civet cats are more common than previously thought, and whether this may affect us about the origin of covid-19 What impact does your understanding have.
Continuous overflow
But there is no evidence that animals are infected with more than 99% of the same coronavirus as SARS-CoV-2, and some scientists continue to oppose natural origin.
One such critic is Alina Chen, a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard University (this publication is owned by MIT, but is editorially independent of it).The core problem, she is in a A recent webinar organized by “Science” magazine, Is how the virus reached Wuhan from caves in China or other parts of Southeast Asia more than a thousand miles away. “Wuhan has a very powerful channel for scientists to go deep into these places [knew] They will find the SARS virus and take them all the way to Wuhan, like thousands of miles away,” she said. However, she added that there is no evidence that the wildlife trade has such a route.
Linfa Wang, director of the Emerging Infectious Diseases Program at Duke National University in Singapore, said that this ambiguity also plagued the origin of SARS. The cave where the close relatives of SARS-CoV-1 bats were produced is nearly 1,000 miles from the Guangdong market where the first SARS case appeared—similar to the distance between Wuhan and one of the close relatives of SARS-CoV bats-2 has been found.
It is becoming clear that people in close contact with wild animals are infected with the coronavirus more frequently than previously thought.
“[Huanan] According to what we know now, it is more likely to happen than other situations. “
Michael worobby
Studies have shown that up to 4% People living near bats with Close cooperation with wild animals In southern China, people have been infected with deadly animal-borne viruses, including coronaviruses.A team from Laos and France, they found Close relatives of SARS-CoV-2,discover One in five bat handlers in Laos have antibodies against these coronaviruses.
Researchers say that most spilled infections go away on their own. In a study published in the journal Science in April, Worobey and his colleagues showed in computer simulations that for the spillover of SARS-CoV-2 to cause a major epidemic, the urban environment is very important-without it, it will soon disappear.
A wildlife trader who has been in contact with the SARS-CoV-2 ancestors (from bats or other animal species) is “hundreds of times, even thousands of times more likely to bring infectious diseases to South China,” Wang said. He took samples and returned to Wuhan with the pathogen, and then took it to South China.
Vorobbie agreed. Based on many evidences, he is now not only convinced that the connection between the pandemic and the South China market is real, but also the place where SARS-CoV-2 ancestors jumped from animals to humans. “Based on what we know now, this is more likely than any other situation,” he said.
The preliminary results of the ongoing work of his team and others will help further strengthen the case, he added: “They all point in the same direction.”
Editor’s note: This story has been edited to clarify the identity of the man previously believed to be the first confirmed case of covid-19.
The reporting of this article was funded by the Pulitzer Center.
[ad_2]
Source link
