Coronavirus has a natural origin, says study

Mar 18, 2020

New Delhi, Mar 19 (ANI): A new study suggests that the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) that emerged from China's Wuhan city is a product of natural evolution. The study was published in the journal -- Nature Medicine. The analysis of public genome sequence data from SARS-CoV-2 and related viruses found no evidence that the virus was made in a laboratory or otherwise engineered."By comparing the available genome sequence data for known coronavirus strains, we can firmly determine that SARS-CoV-2 originated through natural processes," said the lead researcher Kristian Andersen. In addition to Andersen, authors on the paper, "The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2," include Robert F. Garry of Tulane University, Edward Holmes, of the University of Sydney, Andrew Rambaut of University of Edinburgh and W. Ian Lipkin of Columbia University. Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that can cause illnesses ranging widely in severity. The first known severe illness caused by a coronavirus emerged with the 2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) epidemic in China. A second outbreak of severe illness began in 2012 in Saudi Arabia with the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). On December 31 last year, Chinese authorities alerted the World Health Organisation (WHO) of an outbreak of a novel strain of coronavirus causing severe illness, which was subsequently named SARS-CoV-2. As of February 20, 2020, nearly 167,500 COVID-19 cases have been documented, although many more mild cases have likely gone undiagnosed. The virus has killed over 6,600 people. Shortly after the epidemic began, Chinese scientists sequenced the genome of SARS-CoV-2 and made the data available to researchers worldwide. The resulting genomic sequence data has shown that Chinese authorities rapidly detected the epidemic and that the number of COVID-19 cases have been increasing because of human to human transmission after a single introduction into the human population. Andersen and collaborators at several other research institutions used this sequencing data to explore the origins and evolution of SARS-CoV-2 by focusing in on several tell-tale features of the virus. The scientists analysed the genetic template for spike proteins, armatures on the outside of the virus that it uses to grab and penetrate the outer walls of human and animal cells.