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‘India is Origin of COVID-19 Virus’, Claim Chinese Researchers

A team from China’s top science institution, the Chinese Academy of Sciences in a paper claims that SARS-CoV-2 likely originated in India in the summer of 2019.

According to Chinese scientists, Wuhan is the place where the first human to human transmission of SARS-CoV-2 occurred.

Before the virus had spread to Wuhan, it had already seen some evolution in the previous transmission between humans, says the paper.

According to the study published in a paper by researchers at the Shanghai Institute for Biological Sciences, the coronavirus spread across several countries and China was the first one to detect it.

The Chinese scientists further claim that the coronavirus entered humans through contaminated water by animals.

It further adds that the least mutated strain’s geographic information and strain diversity suggest that the Indian subcontinent might be the place where the first human to human transmission of the virus occurred, a few months prior to the Wuhan outbreak.

Estimating the time it takes for the virus to mutate and comparing that time to the samples taken in the region, the study claims that the virus first emerged in July or August 2019 in the region.

It further added that “From May to June 2019, the second-long recorded heat-wave had rampaged in northern-central India and Pakistan, which created a serious water crisis in this region. The water shortage made wild animals, such as monkeys, engage in the deadly fight over water among each other and would have

surely increased the chance of human-wild animal interactions.”

“As known for all, the hygiene condition is imperfect and the public medical system is less efficient in the subcontinent. Thus, it is conceivable the conceivable that a virus with flu-like symptoms could spread undetectably for several months there,” the research paper adds on.

According to the paper, scientists used a method called phylogenetic analysis. It is a technique where scientists study the mutation of the virus to trace the origins of Covid-19.

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