Author Name: Carribean Channel, Cuba TV.
This story was originally published on canalcaribe.ict.cu. [1]

SARS-CoV-2: laboratory virus or result of natural selection?

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Date: 2021-08

These days many questions arise about the new coronavirus, both within the scientific community and among citizens around the world.

Are we dealing with a “laboratory virus” or is it the result of natural selection?

How should COVID-19 patients proceed when they recover and the symptoms of the disease disappear?

Recent research indicates that the new coronavirus does not appear to have been created in a laboratory, but rather arose from natural processes. To reach that conclusion, the authors of the study published this week in the journal Nature Medicine, conducted a comparative analysis of Data from the SARS-CoV-2 genome, the seventh coronavirus infecting humans, so far known.

This was possible thanks to the fact that a few days after the outbreak, Chinese scientists sequenced its genome and put it at the service of researchers around the world.

Based on this information, the experts determined that although the mechanism of the virus to infect human cells is very effective, computational analyzes show that this interaction is not ideal. Therefore, it is unlikely to be the result of intentional laboratory manipulation.

Another fact also supports the theory that SARS-CoV-2 has a natural origin, and that when analyzing the molecular structure of the new coronavirus, they confirmed a remarkable similarity to the viruses of animals such as bats or pangolins, mammals similar to armadillos found in Asia and Africa.

With these ideas in mind, scientists describe at least two scenarios to explain the origins of SARS-CoV-2. A first possibility is that the natural selection of the infectious traits of the virus occurred within a host animal and from there, it was transferred to the human being.

This was the case before, with Acute Respiratory Severe Syndrome (2002), related to direct exposure to a mammal known as civet and also in the case of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, linked to camels.

So far, the researchers suggest that bats are the most likely reservoir for SARS-CoV-2 because it is a coronavirus very similar to the one that affects these animals. However, there are no documented cases of direct transmission between bats and humans, so there is likely to be an intermediate host, in which case pangolins, illegally traded in the Wuhan market, are evaluated.

The second idea is that a non-pathogenic virus, that is, it does not cause disease, passed from a host animal to a person. Then, among the human population, it evolved to acquire its ability to make us sick. As the investigations continue, internet sites specialized in data verification also point out that so far, no scientific evidence confirms that the new coronavirus has been created in a laboratory.

WHO recommendations for cured patients

In addition to the controversy surrounding the origin of the virus, another common question is how to proceed with COVID-19 patients, when the symptoms of the disease disappear. Given this concern, authorities of the World Health Organization confirm that, according to scientific evidence, those infected can infect other people after recovering. Therefore, their isolation should continue for about FIFTEEN days.

(C) Cuba TV, Cuban state owned media.
[1] Url: https://www.canalcaribe.icrt.cu/en/sars-cov-2-laboratory-virus-or-result-of-natural-selection/

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