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scientist inChinacollected key coronavirus data in 2020 from a securities industry in Wuhan — reason zero of thefirst reported eruption of COVID-19 — but did n’t share the in the raw data publically until March 2023 . And expert distrust that China has much more data from the former pandemic that " have yet to be partake " with the world-wide research community .
That ’s according to a Modern newspaper column , bring out Thursday ( April 6 ) in the journalScienceand pen byMaria Van Kerkhove , the COVID-19 technological pencil lead for the World Health Organization ( WHO ) . China probably has data point that could drop light on how thepandemicbegan , Van Kerkhove write , and the land ’s nonstarter to expose the datum make the whole world more vulnerable to future pandemic .
Maria Van Kerkhove of the World Health Organization pictured at a press conference in Geneva on 28 February 2025.
These undisclosed data likely include detail of China ’s wild- and farmed - animal trades , as well as the operations of lab in Wuhan that work with coronaviruses , according to the editorial . The data also may include details about the early potential example of COVID-19 detected in China and the diagnostic testing that was conducted in mankind and animals in the former days of the pandemic .
" WHO remain to call on China and all countries to divvy up any data point on the origins of SARS - CoV-2 , immediately , " Van Kerkhove wrote . " The existence want to move away from the politics of blame and , instead , exploit all diplomatic and scientific approach so that the spheric scientific community can do what it does best — collaborate , concentre on this wellness crisis , and ascertain grounds - establish solutions to scotch future pandemic . "
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Van Kerkhove ’s argument was prompted by events that took place last calendar month . In early March , researchers from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention ( China CDC ) upload never - before - find coronavirus data to Global Initiative on partake in Avian Influenza Data ( GISAID ) , an candid - access database that includes data on flu viruses and SARS - CoV-2 , the virus that causes COVID-19 . The data was later take from GISAID but not before being downloaded by researchers outside China .
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This international team of researcher report that the data show thatSARS - CoV-2 genetic material and the DNA of common racoon dogs(Nyctereutes procyonoides ) were present in and around the exact same booth at Wuhan ’s Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in January 2020 . The datum can not show that the raccoon dogs , a George Fox relative , were actively infected with SARS - CoV-2 at the time , but they powerfully raise the possibleness that septic animals were at the grocery store , potentially spreading the virus to other animals and to humans .
This analysis prompt a meeting of the WHO Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens ( SAGO ) , the China CDC researchers and the international team that analyzed the fresh free racoon dog data . China ’s bankruptcy to share the data back in 2020 is " simply inexcusable , " Van Kerkhove write in her newspaper column .
" Still needed are studies that trace and test those fauna to their source and serologic bailiwick of the workers in live animal markets in Wuhan or in the source farms , " Van Kerkhove spell . " Without such probe , we can not fully understand the factors that led to the starting signal of this pandemic . "
" Every novel piece of data could potentially move the humans closer to stopping another pandemic — perhaps a bad one — in the future , " she wrote .
