First known COVID-19 case was vendor at Wuhan market: Study
The first confirmed case of symptomatic COVID-19 can be traced to a female seafood vendor at an animal market in China's Wuhan. The study, published in the medical journal Science, states the first patient worked at the Huanan live animal market. Notably, Wuhan city is where the coronavirus was first reported in 2019 and later became a pandemic. Here are more details on this.
Why does it matter?
The new study suggests that an inquiry by the World Health Organization (WHO) may have gotten the chronology of the pandemic wrong. That research had named an accountant living miles away from the Wuhan market as the first known COVID-19 patient. The fresh findings will also likely revive the debate over the beginning of the pandemic and even call for a more rigorous investigation.
Researcher suggests pandemic began from Wuhan market
Dr. Michael Worobey, who conducted the study, argued the vendor's links to the Huanan market suggest the pandemic began there. "In this city of 11 million people, half of the early cases are linked to a place that's the size of a soccer field," he said. "It becomes very difficult to explain that pattern if the outbreak didn't start at the market."
But scientists say the study is not enough
Several experts said Dr. Worobey's work was sound but added it is not enough to settle the question of how the pandemic started. They suggested the virus first infected a "patient zero" weeks before the vendor's case and a wider outbreak at the market. That first infection happened around mid-November 2019, according to studies of changes in the virus's genome.
WHO's report was probably wrong, member says
In January this year, researchers sent by the WHO had visited China and interviewed an accountant. They described him as the first known COVID-19 case in their report published in March 2021. However, Dr. Peter Daszak, who was part of the WHO team, said he was convinced they had been wrong. That "was a mistake," said Dr. Daszak.
