2023-04-18 11:54:15
Gao Fu, the former chief official in charge of China’s response to the COVID-19 disease, said that there is no evidence of the type of animal from which the emerging coronavirus was transmitted, and said that the true origins of the disease may never be revealed.
When the epidemic first appeared in the Wuhan market in 2019, the virologist, who was director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told the newspaper. British Telegraph He is “not optimistic” that the origin of the virus will ever be known, citing political and scientific hurdles. He said it was a “very sensitive, very politicized” issue.
The scientist told a medical conference in London that he was in China very early and did not see “anything unusual until the end of December 2019” when Wuhan hospitals began to fill up with injured people.
Regarding the origin of the virus, he told the audience: “In short, there is no evidence of the animals from which the virus came.”
The newspaper says that he later told her that the issue of the origin of the epidemic had become very sensitive and politicized, which prevents it from being discussed at length, “and we must focus on science.”
Dr. Zhao added that the theory that there was an intermediate animal between bats and humans that provided a “repository” for the virus may be wrong.
And he continued in this regard: “As for SARS, it was found once in a civet cat, but not once more. This might also be what happened with Covid. It may happen once in a few animals, a small group, a few cages.” .
SARS appeared between 2002 and 2003 in China, then spread to Southeast Asia, killing 783 people. Scientists said that its origin is the bats that infected civet cats, which in turn infected humans.
Dr. Zhao and his team recently published genetic sequences indicating that raccoons and other animals in the Wuhan market were carrying the virus.
In the study, published two weeks ago in the journal Nature, the researchers said the data provided “convincing evidence” that the virus was spreading widely in the Wuhan market in January 2020.
But the researchers stressed that there is no evidence of how the virus got there, arguing that although it may have come from an animal, it might also be the result of a “human product or cold chain”.
The controversy over the origin of the virus revolved around two hypotheses: the first says that it leaked from a Chinese laboratory and the second says that it has purely natural roots, and the latter lacked genetic evidence from the Wuhan market to support it.
The Chinese scientist’s statements come following the hypothesis of the virus leaking from the laboratory returned to the fore, thanks to a new intelligence assessment from the US Department of Energy, and the hearings led by the new Republican leadership of the House of Representatives.
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