The window of opportunity to establish the origins of SARS-CoV-2 will close within months if action isn鈥檛 taken soon, warn scientists tasked by the World Health Organization (WHO) to discover how the virus emerged.
In a wide-ranging article in the journal Nature, the team calls for a second phase of origin studies to start urgently and asks for renewed focus on an animal origin of the virus, rather than a leak from a laboratory. The group also defended its work, , but has received .
鈥淲e wrote [the article] because the clock is ticking and time is passing,鈥� says at the Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, who was part of the team that visited Wuhan, China, in January to explore the origins of the virus. 鈥淲e feel a sense of urgency is missing.鈥�
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Waning covid-19 antibodies in the first people infected by the virus and the culling of animals at Chinese wildlife farms are two reasons why the 鈥渨indow is rapidly closing on the biological feasibility鈥� of tracing the virus back to where it started, the group says. Asked how long remains to identify the virus鈥� origin, Koopmans says it is a matter of months, not years.
The article comes after WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus for a second phase of studies into the virus鈥� origins, including an audit of processes at laboratories such as the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which researches coronaviruses. The Chinese government rejected the proposal, it showed 鈥渁rrogance towards science鈥�.
A separate report by US intelligence on the origins of covid-19, which was and ordered to explore the possibility of a lab leak, .
Koopmans says the spotlight must be put back on what the team concluded is SARS-CoV-2鈥檚 most likely origin: an animal virus moving into humans through a direct contact or an intermediary, either at the Huanan seafood market in Wuhan or at another step of the wildlife trade.
The group feels that discussions by WHO member states regarding the first report are taking too long and are too narrowly focused on the lab-leak hypothesis. 鈥淲e should not lose sight of the other hypothesis, which we have concluded is the most likely,鈥� says Koopmans. strengthened the case for the animal origin, she adds.
The team also says that no data supporting a lab-leak hypothesis has yet been submitted to the WHO, despite repeated calls for it. A researcher who has spoken with the authors of the Nature article, but wishes to remain anonymous, says that one reason for the article was that the team members felt they needed to defend their reputations, and also because they felt sidelined by Ghebreyesus鈥檚 focus on lab leaks.
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The article goes on to suggest that the WHO鈥檚 goalposts shifted during the initial inquiry. For example, the WHO鈥檚 original terms of reference didn鈥檛 include asking Chinese researchers to hand over raw patient data. The WHO asked for the data while the first phase of the inquiry was underway.
The article states that researchers in China were and still are 鈥渞eluctant鈥� to share the raw data on 174 covid-19 patients identified in December 2019 because of concerns over patient confidentiality. 鈥淚t鈥檚 easier said than done,鈥� says Koopmans.
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The team has set out six priorities for the next phase of studies into the origins of SARS-CoV-2, including looking for human covid-19 cases in late 2019, both inside and outside of China. Following the ease with which covid-19 circulated in farmed mink in Denmark, the team also wants to see surveys on possible covid-19 hosts or intermediaries, including wild bats and 鈥渉igh-risk鈥� farmed animals, such as badgers and civets, and those farmed for fur.
at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, who isn鈥檛 part of the inquiry, says: 鈥淭heir first message is they acknowledge they have not had access to all the data, to the earliest clinical cases, to all the animal data 鈥� and that鈥檚 critically important.鈥�
At the start of the 2003 SARS epidemic, when it was clear that the virus involved the wildlife trade and mixing of species that wouldn鈥檛 normally encounter each other in nature, China鈥檚 government was unwilling to release data. 鈥淐hina took two years to release the first 50 people鈥檚 data,鈥� says Beyrer.
鈥淭he [Nature] article implies that China has not been fully cooperative in terms of being transparent in the probe,鈥� says Yanzhong Huang at the Council on Foreign Relations, a US think tank based in New York City. 鈥淚 think it will have an impact, through the strong message on the urgency of conducting phase two of the investigation.鈥� The Biden administration is supportive of a second phase.
The WHO commented on the聽狈补迟耻谤别听article, saying in a statement: 鈥淭hey have done important work before and during their mission to Wuhan to advance our knowledge on the origin and their work will be valuable for the next steps in looking for the origin of this virus.鈥�
A conflict of interest statement accompanying the article notes that one of the authors, Peter Daszak at EcoHealth Alliance in New York City, has previously conducted studies with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the facility at the centre of the lab-leak hypothesis. The paper is written solely by the inquiry鈥檚 ten external scientists. That doesn鈥檛 include Peter Ben Embarek at the WHO, who has worked on the inquiry and fronted . 鈥淚t鈥檚 not a sign of disagreement,鈥� says Koopmans of his omission.
at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, who led the WHO response to SARS in 2003, says he hopes scientists in and outside of China will continue to work together, though it remains unclear if the virus鈥� source can be found at this stage. 鈥淭he collaboration that has been started has been really important.
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