COVID-19 likely originated in southern China at farms the central government has supported over the past two decades to provide cheap meat for the rural poor.
This was uncovered by a team of doctors and scientists from the World Health Organization who visited China in January.
Organization investigators found evidence wildlife farms supplied vendors at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan. These farms breed animals such as civet cats and pangolins known to carry coronaviruses.
The market, which was shut down by local authorities, was identified as the source of wild animals infected with the virus that causes COVID.
The farms include those in Yunnan province. A study published in Nature Microbiology in September said the virus originated from Horseshoe bats in Yunnan. The study found the lineage giving rise to the virus had been circulating unnoticed in bats for decades.
Dr. Peter Daszak, a member of the organization's delegation and an expert in disease ecology and zoonosis, said these government-sponsored farms were part of a project the China government had been promoting for 20 years. The farms, including those in Hebei province where COVID originated, helped the government alleviate rural poverty.
"They take exotic animals, like civets, porcupines, pangolins, raccoon dogs and bamboo rats, and they breed them in captivity," Daszak said. "China promoted the farming of wildlife as a way to alleviate rural populations out of poverty," he added.
"It was very successful. In 2016, they had 14 million people employed in wildlife farms and it was a $70 billion industry."
Daszak said the organization investigators found evidence these farms supplied vendors at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market. He said the market was shut down Dec. 31, 2019 after it was linked to cases of what was then thought to be a mysterious pneumonia-like illness.
"There was massive transmission going on at that market for sure," according to Dr. Linfa Wang, a member of the organization team and a virologist who studies bat viruses at Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore.
Wang said after the outbreak at the Huanan market, Chinese scientists came and investigated the virus. "They had many positive samples," according to Wang. "They even have two samples from which they could isolate live viruses."
The central government shut down the farms following the spread of the virus. "They sent out instructions to the farmers about how to safely dispose of the animals - to bury, kill or burn them - in a way that didn't spread disease," said Daszak.
Daszak thinks these farms could be where the coronavirus jumped from a bat into another animal and then into people.
