Mink raised for their fur in Denmark.

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Mads Claus Rasmussen / AP / SIPA

  • The investigation to find the origins of the coronavirus is on the spot, a year after the first official death of the pandemic.

  • This research is however crucial to take preventive measures.

  • On the strength of its success in the face of the pandemic, China is slowing down with four irons in this investigation.

Pangolin?

Bat ?

Mink?

Italy?

China?

For a year, and the first official death from the new coronavirus in China, the race for the origins of Covid-19 has been launched.

For now, it is still unsuccessful.

And the chances of unraveling this mystery are dwindling as China, on the ropes a year ago, regains strength.

While the epidemic has almost (officially) disappeared from the country, Beijing is putting the handbrake on all international initiatives to try to find out how the Covid-19 got to humans.

A team from the World Health Organization, which should have arrived in China last week, was stranded at the last moment, Beijing saying it is still "negotiating" with the WHO on the progress of the mission.

While it is almost certain that the epidemic has started to manifest itself in the notorious Wuhan market, that does not mean that the virus was first transmitted to humans in the same location.

The fact that the virus was highly contagious when it was reported in December 2019 means that it had already been circulating for a long time.

"It is absolutely not plausible" that the virus originated in the Wuhan market, even said epidemiologist Daniel Lucey, from Georgetown University in Washington to AFP.

"It appeared naturally several months ago, maybe a year before, maybe even even earlier."

A fundamental discovery

And discovering the origins of the virus is crucial: this would make it possible to direct preventive measures towards certain animal species, to prohibit their hunting or breeding and to avoid interactions with humans.

"If we can understand why [epidemics] appear, we could fight their vectors," pleads Peter Daszak, president of the EcoHealth Alliance, an association based in the United States and specializing in disease prevention, to AFP .

The new coronavirus is a zoonosis that first appeared in an animal: the bat.

But, as

Le Parisien Dimanche

clarifies

, the virus cannot pass directly from bats to humans.

We must therefore find the “support” animal (s) that led the virus to become contagious for humans.

Last spring, we talked a lot about the pangolin, which might ultimately be “innocent”.

Today, the investigation is more oriented towards mink.

The mink trail

The end of 2020, before the panic around the more contagious South African and British variants, was indeed occupied by massive contaminations in American mink farms, especially in Denmark.

So much so that specialists come to wonder if the bridge between bats and humans should not be sought here, bats can very well nest in the breeding sheds of these mammals.

"What is intriguing is how much the disease seems to pass from humans to mink and vice versa, as if the path had already been mapped out", notes Alexandre Hassanin, zoologist at the National Museum of Natural History in

Le Parisien Dimanche

.

This theory also seems consistent with a birth in China: it is the world's largest producer of fur.

But Italy also produces a lot of mink furs, especially northern Italy, where the epidemic has emerged in Europe.

Enough for China to imply that the virus may not be coming from home.

Especially since spring 2020, we forgot, but the Italian variant quickly supplanted the Chinese variant.

“I find this hypothesis less solid.

Lombardy is also a region of intense exchanges with China ”, thinks Jean-Luc Angot, president of the Veterinary Academy of France, in

Le Parisien

.

"I am convinced that we will eventually find the species of bat that transmitted it as well as the probable route of contamination", hopes with AFP Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, an association based in United States and specializes in disease prevention.

“We will never be sure, but we will surely have solid proof.

But the question of the species is secondary for biologist Diana Bell of the University of East Anglia in the UK.

“It doesn't matter what the source: we just have to put an end to this damn mix of species in the markets.

We must stop the trade in wild animals for food.

"

World

Denmark to ban mink farming for one year

Planet

The pangolin withdrawn from the traditional Chinese pharmacopoeia

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