An imperfect stone in the puzzle ... The origin of the Coronavirus is occupied by researchers and the civet cat is an ideal suspect

How did the emerging corona virus causing "Covid 19" appear and spread from bat to human? This question still worries the researchers, which is confirmed by Mireader Lugoye, who coordinates research in France on the origin of the pandemic, saying that "a stone is still missing in this puzzle."

"No one can confirm that he understood how this virus appeared," explains the epidemiologist and environmentalist at the University of Cannes (western France) and a member of the research group on bacterial adaptation.

"In this Corona virus, there are traces of several viruses that we know in nature, but we do not know direct parents, but only cousins," Lugoye, 39, added. "It is completely excluded that the virus will be" compound "(in a Chinese laboratory, for example).

The debate over the origin of the virus had diplomatic consequences, as the United States accused a Chinese laboratory in Wuhan of being behind the emerging corona virus, while Beijing denied that this had happened.

However, the vast majority of researchers consider that the virus was transmitted to humans from an animal. Chinese scientists have pointed the finger at a market in Wuhan for selling live wild animals.

By analyzing the virus genetically, scientists were able to find a similarity between the current virus and another virus that was detected on Bat in 2013 in Yunnan Province, southern China, which is 96% identical to it.

Hypotheses and options
Although transmission directly from bat to human is "possible", it is not the most likely hypothesis to confirm what the Coronavirus expert stresses because close and frequent communication must occur until the virus is transmitted from one type to another, "unless we discover massive trafficking of bats in the three years Last.

Lugoye explains that "the second option is to raise a wild animal", which constituted the mediating guest between the Bat and the human, stressing that "there is an imperfect stone in the puzzle" that may not be the scaly ant that is often mentioned, but rather a civet cat.

The French researcher deepened his study of this small mammal in the context of an epidemic caused by another coronavirus, SARS, in 2002, and he was the subject of his thesis six years later.

He says, "Civet cat meat is a dish that is consumed on large occasions, and it is a carnivore close to the dog and cat (...) roaming the caves and eating and pans from time to time."

"Raising a civet cat has increased 50-fold in the five years before the outbreak of the SARS virus. The civet cat caught in the wild has been transferred to farms, which has resulted in the birth of a mutant virus that is present only in the civet cat raised by humans."

Today, Chinese scientists publish "10 articles a day without referring to breeding farms in the area ... so I can get an opportunity to take samples from all the breeding sites of these animals that were in the area three or four months ago."

The origin of the virus
The research project "Discover", coordinated by Lugoye, aims to reach the origin of the emerging corona virus by studying the spread, diversity and development of corona viruses in different species in northern Laos and Thailand.

The French researcher confirms that "the goal is not necessarily to find the missing stone that may have disappeared now, but this work may allow us to obtain indicators and a set of information to better understand what happened, and we will have a very good view of what happened before the virus spread and all that surrounded it" .

Lugoye stresses that it is also about "identifying practices that posed risks" in the spread of new viruses such as raising civet cat.

The researcher concludes, "There is a link, of course, between the expansion of man at the expense of wildlife and the way we deal with nature and the emergence of new diseases, and we see a clear link between the health of ecosystems and human health."