Word: coronavirus
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...fieldwork. It was Yi, along with the Shenzhen Centers for Disease Control (CDC), who in May took samples from Shenzhen's Dongmen Market and made the discovery that the masked palm civet, as well as the raccoon dog and hog badger, carried a virus remarkably similar to the coronavirus that causes SARS. That research, initially hailed as a breakthrough in establishing the zoonotic origins of SARS, resulted in the Guangdong government temporarily shutting down the wildlife markets and banning the sale of civets. For Yi, who attended medical school at Nanchang Medical College in Jiangxi province before completing his Ph.D...
...Instead, subsequent research by a mainland Chinese team challenged Yi's research, finding no evidence of the SARS coronavirus in civets. Meanwhile, other scientists murmured that Yi's data was based on too narrow a range of samples drawn from just one market. Perhaps those civets, some argued, had been infected by humans in that market, rather than the other way around. For Yi, a hot-tempered, chain-smoking workaholic, this was an unbearable impugning not just of his research but also his genuine desire to apply his science to public health. Even more worrying was the Chinese government...
...Despite the doubts cast by other scientists, Yi was still sure there was SARS coronavirus in wildlife markets. Taking into account the possibility that seasonality was a factor in the replication of the SARS coronavirus, he waited until October?about a year since the first cases appeared?and began returning to the Guangdong wild animal markets every week with his black satchel bag full of syringes, swabs and sample vials. Working with the Guangzhou CDC and the Shenzhen CDC, he paid $6 for each animal he would test to an animal trader who supplied Dongmen Market. In Guangzhou's Xinyuan...
...When he brought those samples back to Hong Kong, a frightening picture started to emerge. Not only was he again finding the SARS coronavirus in a host of rodent species?in addition to the civet cat, he also detected the virus in hog badgers, Eurasian badgers, raccoon badgers and ferret badgers?he was astonished, when he did the genomic sequencing, to observe that these coronaviruses had actually mutated to become more similar to the SARS coronavirus samples taken from humans during the first outbreak last spring. All this confirmed that the disease that had infected humans was again at large...
...slightly exposed" to SARS, as the WHO stated late last week? Sure. But doesn't that mean this is a SARS case? Judging by two positive antibody results taken from samples sent to Hong Kong last week, the Guangzhou patient was almost certainly exposed to SARS or a coronavirus genetically very similar to SARS. But the WHO has been reluctant to say so, and that has begun to rankle some Chinese health officials...