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China's Wuhan seafood market likely epicentre of Covid-19 outbreak: Study

A new study in journal ‘Science’ suggests that the seafood market of China's Wuhan is the cause of Covid-19 outbreak. (Reuters)

The first study as quoted by news agency ANI shows that the earliest Covid-19 cases were clustered aorund the Wuhan market.

"Earliest Covid-19 cases occured across Wuhan, near the west bank of the Yangtze river," cited the study titled 'The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was the early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic'.

It says that all the eight Covid-19 cases detected before December 20 in 2019 were from the western side of the Wuhan market where mammal species were also sold.

Meanwhile, another study that also backs the claim on China's Wuhan market to be the epicentre of Covid-19 disease, used genetic information to track the timing of the coronavirus outbreak. It suggests that a total of two variants were introduced into humans in November or early December 2019.

This study in the journal Science, which is titled "The molecular epidemiology of multiple zoonotic origins of SARS-CoV-2", took a molecular approach and seems to determine when the virus crossed from animals to human beings.

According to this study, the first animal to human transmission might happened around November 18, 2019 which later, came to lineage B that was found only in people who had a direct connection to Huanan seafood market.

Both the studies reached the evidence that Sars-Cov-2 was present in live mammals that were sold in the Wuhan market in late 2019, that was later transmitted to people working or shopping there.

These two peer-reviewed studies come a month after the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended the scientists to continue the research on the origin of Covid-19 pandemic.

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