"The homology of the bat coronavirus RaTG13 genome with the new coronavirus reaches 96.
At a press conference of the State Council Information Office focusing on the traceability of the new crown virus held on July 22, Xu Nanping, the deputy minister of the Ministry of Science and Technology, compared the two sets of data
“It should be recognized that traceability is essentially a scientific issue
At this meeting, a number of experts pointed out based on various scientific evidence that the introduction of the new coronavirus laboratory is "extremely impossible
"Extremely Impossible" to be introduced by the laboratory
"Extremely Impossible" to be introduced by the laboratory On March 30 this year, in the "Research on the Global Traceability of the New Coronavirus: Joint Research Report on the Chinese Part" released by the World Health Organization (WHO), the China-WHO Joint Research Expert Group on the Traceability of the New Coronavirus (hereinafter referred to as the Joint Expert Group) It is concluded that the coronaviruses most closely related to the new coronavirus found in bats and pangolins have the highest homology to the new coronavirus from the perspective of sequence, but these viruses are still not enough to prove that they are the direct ancestors of the new coronavirus
Combining the research results of various aspects such as clinical epidemiology, animal and environmental testing, the joint expert group finally determined four possibilities for the emergence of the virus: the direct spillover of zoonotic diseases is "probable to more likely"; introduction through intermediate hosts It is "more likely to very likely"; it is "possible" to introduce it through the cold chain.
In this regard, Zeng Yixin, deputy director of the National Health Commission, said that the report released by the WHO in March this year gave "a good start for global traceability research
"This plan puts the hypothesis of'China's violation of laboratory procedures causing virus leakage' as one of the research priorities
"The new coronavirus is of natural origin, and this has become a general consensus in the academic community
Chinese Academy of Sciences For example, on July 5, 24 internationally renowned experts once again published a paper in The Lancet, stating that there is currently no scientific evidence to support the theory that the new coronavirus leaked from a Chinese laboratory; on July 7, from the United States and the United Kingdom These scientists in Australia published a preprinted article on the European scientific data sharing platform Zenodo, stating that “there is no evidence that the new crown virus came from the Wuhan laboratory”; on July 16, 22 Chinese and foreign scientists published a report in the “Science in China: Life Sciences”.
Yuan Zhiming emphasized that before December 30, 2019, Wuhan Institute of Virology had not contacted, preserved, or studied the new crown virus; Wuhan Institute of Virology had never designed, manufactured, or leaked the new crown virus; so far, employees and graduate students of Wuhan Institute of Virology , To maintain the "zero infection" of the new coronavirus
"So where did the virus leak due to violation of laboratory procedures? So (WHO) this formulation violates both common sense and scientific laws
Animal traceability and cold chain transmission are the focus of further research
Animal traceability and cold chain transmission are the focus of further research In March this year, the first phase of the WHO report pointed out that the introduction of animal sources, especially from natural hosts to intermediate hosts and then to humans, is from "more likely to very likely
In fact, Chinese scientists have done a lot of work in this area
Liang Wannian pointed out that at the beginning of this year, when the joint expert team went to work on site in Wuhan, the Chinese side had already demonstrated the testing of market animals, including the comprehensive traceability of the upstream farms of the relevant market animals, and no positive results were found
In the study of bats, he said that Chinese scientists have also done a lot of research and collected a large number of samples
.
These studies have found viruses that are relatively similar to the new coronavirus, but have not isolated the new coronavirus from a large number of bat specimens in China
.
In the next step, Liang Wannian said that animal tracing should still be the key direction and key field, and it is the most worthwhile thing to do
.
Among them, the natural evolution of pathogens deserves the most attention.
Not only should we consider wild animals such as bats, but also the intermediate ones, such as pangolins, raccoons, minks, etc.
, which have been carried or possibly carried by scientists from various countries.
The distribution of these hosts and possible sources of pathogens can be studied
.
In addition, it is also valuable to conduct further research on some markets where the epidemic has occurred, including the upstream and downstream chains of farms
.
At the same time, Wang Chen, vice president of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, president of the Peking Union Medical College, and director of the National Center for Respiratory Medicine, pointed out that the role of cold chains in the spread of infectious diseases is a new phenomenon that deserves full attention
.
First of all, the correspondence between cold chain and disease epidemic has been discovered from epidemiology
.
Such a close relationship can be seen from both the newly-occurring epidemic in Beijing and the epidemic in Qingdao
.
Secondly, in the detection of viral nucleic acid, the nucleic acid test on cold chain items is positive
.
Especially in the Qingdao epidemic, not only viral nucleic acids were detected on the surface of cold chain items, but also viruses were isolated and cultured, which confirmed the existence of live viruses on the surface of cold chain items
.
At the same time, he pointed out that there is a circumstantial evidence in the exploration of scientific issues-in a "cold" situation and a relatively dry environment, the virus can survive and remain infectious for a long time
.
Therefore, cold chain transmission is a new and very noteworthy phenomenon discovered in this new crown pneumonia epidemic, and the evidence chain of transmission caused by this phenomenon is relatively complete
.
For this reason, in the further process of virus traceability, he specifically suggested that the cold chain should be used as a key traceability clue
.
"Under the current international trade background, with the exchange of people and goods around the world, the spread of people-to-things in the cold chain environment has increased the complexity of pathogen transmission, and it is especially worthy of investigation and research
.
" Wang Chen said
.
Carry out scientific traceability with a scientific attitude
Carry out scientific traceability with a scientific attitude “Traceability is essentially a scientific issue, and scientific research has played a vital role in traceability
.
” Xu Nanping said that after the outbreak, China has deployed five major scientific research directions, and traceability is one of the five major scientific research directions.
Very important location
.
For example, at the beginning of the epidemic, a national scientific and technological force was organized to conduct virus tests on wild animals, poultry and livestock in 31 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions across the country, involving dozens of species and more than 80,000 samples.
No case of new coronavirus was found.
Antibody or nucleic acid positive
.
On this basis, we will further conduct virus challenge experiments on animals around us in the laboratory, and queue these animals as susceptible to infection, not susceptible to infection, or non-infection, so as to "know the truth" and know the main direction of animal traceability
.
At the same time, a lot of work has been done in molecular traceability
.
Through joint efforts with scientists from various countries, positive progress has been made in traceability research
.
As of July 19, China, the United States, the United Kingdom and other foreign teams have jointly published 225 papers related to traceability, and domestic research teams have published 352 papers
.
Relying on the National Bioinformatics Center, a global shared new coronavirus information database has been established.
As of July 19, more than 2.
53 million new coronavirus gene sequences have been collected and shared worldwide, providing nearly 300,000 users in 177 countries and regions around the world.
Service
.
"Through more than a year of hard work, we have further realized that virus traceability is a scientific problem and there are many uncertainties
.
" Xu Nanping said that only by strengthening confidence along the path of science and carrying out scientific traceability, can it be finally revealed.
Open the truth
.
As scientists from many countries continue to study the traceability of the new coronavirus, Liang Wannian pointed out that there have been many research results showing that the emergence of the new coronavirus in many places around the world is earlier than the previously known time
.
For example, in November 2019, a skin biopsy of an Italian woman found multiple reactivity of the novel coronavirus in situ hybridization; on November 27, 2019, the genetic material of the novel coronavirus was detected in a wastewater sample collected in a city in Brazil; 2019 From December 13, 2020 to January 17, 2020, there were 106 routine blood donation archive samples in the United States that tested positive for new coronavirus antibodies.
.
.
"This also shows that Wuhan may not be the first site for the new coronavirus to break through the interface.
"He said
.
"The traceability process is so complicated and diverse.
If we want to'seek the origin,' we should not limit our horizons, but expand our horizons
.
This is an important directional issue for multi-point, multi-directional and three-dimensional traceability all over the world
.
" Wang Chen said
.
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