US Edition
Study Purports SARS-CoV-2 Traveled Through Wildlife Trade, Not Bat Migration
- Researchers from UC San Diego published a study in Cell showing SARS-CoV-2 emerged in humans in Wuhan in late 2019.
- The virus’s closest ancestors were found in horseshoe bats from regions of western China and northern Laos, and it reached Wuhan—located over a thousand kilometers away—through the movement of wildlife used in trade.
- The study found that natural bat dispersal alone is highly unlikely due to bats’ limited foraging range of 2–3 kilometers, implying intermediate hosts transported the virus.
- Jonathan Pekar noted the virus ancestors left their original areas only one to two years before SARS and five to seven years before COVID-19 emerged in Wuhan.
- These findings challenge the lab-leak theory, emphasize risks from wildlife trade, and suggest monitoring bat viruses could help prevent future pandemics.
19 Articles
19 Articles
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Coronavirus Likely Was Moved by Wildlife, Research Shows
Days after the US and China again took shots at each other over the origin of COVID-19, researchers have published a genetic study with new reasons to think it was distributed by wildlife. The team compared the development of the earlier SARS epidemic, which killed 774 people in 33 countries,...
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