The new coronavirus that causes Covid-19 may have emerged much earlier than we previously thought, and started far south of Wuhan - according to experts at the University of Cambridge.
New findings have been published by the UK research team in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - although have not been peer-reviewed - which suggest the virus may be months older than we thought and did not come from the animal market in Hubei province.
"The virus may have mutated into its final 'human-efficient' form months ago, but stayed inside a bat or other animal or even human for several months without infecting other individuals," University of Cambridge geneticist Peter Forster said, reports the Daily Star.
"Then, it started infecting and spreading among humans between September 13 and December 7, generating the network we present in [the journal] Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences [PNAS]."
He and colleagues from several counted mutations of the virus and found hundreds, indicating it may have been spreading in host animals for years before finally infecting humans.
A coronavirus typically acquires one mutation a month.
"If I am pressed for an answer, I would say the original spread started more likely in southern China than in Wuhan," Mr Forster said.
"But proof can only come from analysing more bats, possibly other potential host animals, and preserved tissue samples in Chinese hospitals stored between September and December.
"This kind of research project would help us understand how the transmission happened, and help us prevent similar instances in the future."
A virus can undergo transformations in unpredictable patterns during an unprecedented outbreak such as this one.
