On the trail of the origins of Covid-19
Cave inhabited by bats. Sanatana/Shutterstock, CC BY
Véronique Chevalier, Cirad; François Roger, Cirad, and Julia Guillebaud, Institut Pasteur
As the Covid-19 virus (coronavirus SARS-CoV-2) continues to spread and claim victims worldwide, its origins remain unknown. Each scientific community puts forward its own theory, with some suggesting the virus may have leaked out of a laboratory.
Another theory, based on recent studies of the Wuhan wet market in China, along with others carried out in Cambodia, Laos, Japan, China, and Thailand, posits that an ancestral virus in rhinolophus bats went on from infecting wild and/or domestic animals to humans. Indeed, in these different studies, several viruses with genetic sequences very similar to SARS-CoV-2 were isolated in these bats.
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