Advisers to the World Health Organization on Saturday urged China to release all information related to the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic after new findings were briefly shared on an international database used to track pathogens.
New sequences of the SARS-CoV-2 virus as well as additional genomic data based on samples taken from a live animal market in Wuhan, China in 2020 were briefly uploaded to the GISAID database by Chinese scientists earlier this year, allowing them to be viewed by researchers in other countries, according to the statement from the WHO's Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO).
The sequences suggested that raccoon dogs were present in the market and may have also been infected by the coronavirus, providing a new clue in the chain of transmission that eventually reached humans.
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