Ignacio González Bravo

A French researcher has found genetic data showing that raccoon dogs, civets and other mammals susceptible to the infection with SARS-CoV-2 in the early 2020s in the Wuhan market in China. The findings have been presented to the Scientific Advisory Group on the Origin of Emerging Pathogens (SAGO), an expert group convened last year by the World Health Organisation. The data, collected by a team of Chinese scientists, were held in a database called GISAID, but had not been publicly reported and have been withdrawn. SAGO explained the origin of this data and the history of this research in a statement on 18 March.

A genomic analysis of monkeypox viruses from patients in the ongoing outbreak reveals that it most likely has a single origin. This 2022 monkeypox virus diverges from those of 2018-2019 in many more genetic variations than expected for Orthopoxviruses, which may represent ongoing accelerated evolution, according to the authors. The study is published in Nature Medicine.

Climate change will lead to at least 15,000 new cross-species virus transmissions by 2070, as habitat shifts on a 2°C warmer planet will bring previously distant animals closer together. This result, published in Nature, points to increased exposure of humans to pathogens from wild animals.

The pandemic has shown us that neither science nor engineering alone is capable of solving a problem in real time when the crisis is global, when local interventions are costly and of limited effect, when we have to act without having all the information.