Mary Wilson
Well-known member
March 22, 2021 07:33 AM
By Zsombor Peter
KUALA LUMPUR - Scientists hunting the origins of the virus behind COVID-19 and clues for how to prevent the next pandemic say a growing body of evidence argues for expanding the search beyond China into Southeast Asia.
Since the first confirmed outbreak of COVID-19 put the eastern Chinese city of Wuhan on the world map in December 2019, researchers looking for the source of the virus that causes the disease, SARS-CoV-2, have been training their gaze on China itself.
The pathogen?s closest known relative, sharing some 96% of its genome, is another coronavirus found early last year in the southern province of Yunnan
But a spate of recent studies has found more viruses nearly as similar to SARS-CoV-2 as the one in Yunnan further afield, in Thailand and Cambodia.
... The strains found in Thailand and Cambodia, ?could be the ancestor or something close to the ancestor of SARS-COVID-2,? he told VOA.
?That?s why now maybe more work has to be carried out on this region to see whether we can identify any intermediate hosts that carry [a virus with] 99.9% genome similarity to the SARS-COVID-2.?
https://www.voanews.com/covid-19-pa...ng-origins-covid-19-add-southeast-asia-search
By Zsombor Peter
KUALA LUMPUR - Scientists hunting the origins of the virus behind COVID-19 and clues for how to prevent the next pandemic say a growing body of evidence argues for expanding the search beyond China into Southeast Asia.
Since the first confirmed outbreak of COVID-19 put the eastern Chinese city of Wuhan on the world map in December 2019, researchers looking for the source of the virus that causes the disease, SARS-CoV-2, have been training their gaze on China itself.
The pathogen?s closest known relative, sharing some 96% of its genome, is another coronavirus found early last year in the southern province of Yunnan
But a spate of recent studies has found more viruses nearly as similar to SARS-CoV-2 as the one in Yunnan further afield, in Thailand and Cambodia.
... The strains found in Thailand and Cambodia, ?could be the ancestor or something close to the ancestor of SARS-COVID-2,? he told VOA.
?That?s why now maybe more work has to be carried out on this region to see whether we can identify any intermediate hosts that carry [a virus with] 99.9% genome similarity to the SARS-COVID-2.?
https://www.voanews.com/covid-19-pa...ng-origins-covid-19-add-southeast-asia-search