The first study is a geographic analysis that shows that the first cases, detected in December 2019, were concentrated in that market.
The second investigation is a genomic analysis of the virus of the first cases, showing that the virus is very unlikely to have circulated widely among humans before November 2019.
The studies were published this Tuesday in the journal Science, reported the Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Since the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic, there has been a debate among experts, which still seeks, almost three years later, to clarify the mystery about the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
One of the authors of these studies, Michael Worobey, a virologist at the University of Arizona, signed a letter in 2021 asking that the possibility of a leak from a laboratory in Wuhan be seriously considered.
However, with the data analyzed since then, the scientist now considers “that it is simply not plausible that the virus was introduced in any other way than through the animal trade in the Wuhan market”, as he explained in a press conference.
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