Raccoon dog

Data was released briefly, then rescinded. As NPR reported previously, there is already strong evidence pointing to these animals in the Huanan Seafood ...

We do have one analysis where we show essentially that the chance of having this pattern of cases [clustered around the market] is 1 in 10 million [if the market isn't a source of the virus]. He was told, "This is the kind of place that has the ingredients for cross-species transmission of dangerous pathogens." What's more, the caged animals are shown in or near a stall where scientists found SARS-CoV-2 virus on a number of surfaces, including on cages, carts and machines that process animals after they are slaughtered at the market. The data in the 2022 studies paints an incredibly detailed picture of the early days of the pandemic. And even better, in that particular stall, the samples were very animal-y. Virtually all of the findings in the report matched what was in the World Health Organization's report. A concerned customer evidently took these photos and videos of the market on Dec. The team then immediately alerted the WHO about the presence of the data, and the WHO has helped mediate that communication. Specifically, they conclude that the coronavirus most likely jumped from a caged wild animal into people at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, where a huge COVID-19 outbreak began in December 2019. She adds that this information should have been shared years ago: "Any data that exists on the study of the origins of this pandemic need to be made available immediately." These studies have yet to be conducted, and until they are conducted, until we have the data, we aren't able to conclusively say how this pandemic began." "She shared the data with an international team and realized the relevance and importance of the data.

A raccoon dog has been linked to the long-running debate over the origins of the coronavirus after an international team of scientists reported that a ...

Scientists cautioned, though, that their finding does not definitively prove that raccoon dogs were the first source of the virus spreading to humans. A raccoon dog has been linked to the long-running debate over the origins of the

The monogamous, hibernating canids, which are related to foxes, are sold for meat and fur.

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals But subsequent research ultimately pointed to bats as the natural reservoir for the virus that causes SARS; raccoon dogs appeared to be intermediate hosts. Covid-19 aside, the animals are known to be vectors for other diseases, including rabies. [Republicans in Congress](https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000008802050/house-covid-origins-hearing.html?action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=styln-coronavirus&variant=show®ion=MAIN_CONTENT_1&block=storyline_top_links_recirc)pushing the theory that a laboratory leak was to blame. Even if raccoon dogs at the market were infected, they might have been an intermediate host, picking up the virus from bats or another species. The findings did not prove that raccoon dogs were infected with the virus or that they had passed it on to humans. They are also sold for their meat in live animal markets. But that does not mean that they are the natural reservoir for the virus. Although they appear svelte in the summer, they pack on the pounds for winter, when their fur also becomes thicker. Raccoon dogs have long been farmed for their fur. Despite their name, raccoon dogs are not close relatives of raccoons. The new data revealed that some of these same swabs also contained substantial genetic material from raccoon dogs.

Genetic material collected at a Chinese market near where the first human cases of COVID-19 were identified show raccoon-dog DNA commingled with the virus, ...

And Dr Tedros said all hypotheses remained on the table. It had been known there was illegal animal dealing and this is why the market was immediately shut down." Michael Imperiale of the University of Michigan, a microbiology and immunology expert who was not involved in the data analysis, said finding a sample with sequences from the virus and a raccoon dog "places the virus and the dog in very close proximity". How the coronavirus emerged remains unclear. But it is also possible that humans brought the virus to the market and infected the raccoon dogs, or that infected humans simply happened to leave traces of the virus near the animals. "There's a good chance that the animals that deposited that DNA also deposited the virus," said Stephen Goldstein, a virologist at the University of Utah who was involved in analysing the data.

Genetic samples from the market were recently uploaded to an international database and then removed after scientists asked China about them.

He said that the team was still analyzing the data and that it had not intended for its analysis to become public before it had released a report. Scientists involved with the analysis said that some of the samples had also contained genetic material from other animals and from humans. Goldstein, too, cautioned that “we don’t have an infected animal, and we can’t prove definitively there was an infected animal at that stall.” Genetic material from the virus is stable enough, he said, that it is not clear when exactly it was deposited at the market. Holmes had visited in 2014](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/21/health/covid-lab-leak-eddie-holmes.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article), scientists involved in the analysis said. Débarre said she had alerted other scientists, including the leaders of a team that had published a set of studies last year pointing to the market as the origin. [Republicans in Congress](https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000008802050/house-covid-origins-hearing.html?action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=styln-coronavirus&variant=show®ion=MAIN_CONTENT_1&block=storyline_top_links_recirc)pushing the theory that a laboratory leak was to blame. Virus experts had been awaiting that raw sequence data from the market since they learned of its existence in the Chinese report from February 2022. [study](https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-1370392/v1) looking at the same market samples in February 2022. The jumbling together of genetic material from the virus and the animal does not prove that a raccoon dog itself was infected. It also suggests that Chinese scientists have given an incomplete account of evidence that could fill in details about how the virus was spreading at the Huanan market. Department of Energy and [hearings](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/08/us/politics/covid-lab-leak-house-hearing.html) led by the new Republican House leadership. That evidence, they said, was consistent with a scenario in which the virus had spilled into humans from a wild animal.