![\"\"](\"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/1579775401062789.jpg\")
<\/p>\nBy Dave Yin
\nCX Tech<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Scientists affiliated with UK-based universities have disputed a widely-circulated study pointing to snakes as the source of China\u2019s deadly new coronavirus, saying that bats are more likely to be the real culprit.<\/p>\n
A study published Wednesday in the\u00a0peer-reviewed<\/a>\u00a0Journal of Medical Virology had compared the novel virus\u2019 genes to that of other pathogens from various geographic locations and host species. It concluded that while the virus, dubbed \u201c2019-nCoV\u201d by the World Health Organization, was a combination of coronaviruses found in bats and other \u201cunknown\u201d origins, it resided in snakes prior to making the jump to humans.<\/p>\n \u201cResults derived from our evolutionary analysis suggest for the first time that snake is the most probable wildlife animal reservoir for the 2019-nCoV,\u201d wrote the study\u2019s authors, hailing from Peking University, Guangxi University of Chinese Medicine, Ningbo University and the Wuhan University of Bioengineering.<\/p>\n However, scientists at the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research (CVR) and the Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University disputed the findings.<\/p>\n Citing recombination analysis, which create visual depictions of similarities between various genetic sequences, the researchers argued in a Thursday\u00a0post<\/a>\u00a0on a medical discussion forum that 2019-nCoV is most closely related to several viruses originating from bats.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no evidence of snakes being involved, although, given the propensity of coronaviruses to switch hosts, involvement of another species cannot be discounted,\u201d wrote David L Robertson, head of CVR bioinformatics. \u201cThere is also a very good chance that a non-bat intermediate species is responsible for the beginning of the current outbreak in Wuhan.\u201d<\/p>\n Coronaviruses are a category of pathogens that caused the deadly severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) that emerged in 2002 and also include far less lethal viruses such as some forms of the common cold.<\/p>\n The study identifying snakes as the possible source also noted that those who were first infected with the 2019-nCoV virus were exposed to wildlife animals at a now-shuttered wholesale market in Wuhan, Central China\u2019s Hubei province, where seafood, poultry, snake, bats, and farm animals were sold.<\/p>\n On Wednesday, Chinese biology and conservation experts\u00a0called<\/a>\u00a0on (link in Chinese) law enforcement agencies in charge of wildlife protection to step up their duties in preventing the trade and consumption of wild game.<\/p>\n As of Thursday, Chinese officials\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0(link in Chinese) 617 people had fallen sick from the virus while 17 had died. Wuhan has\u00a0imposed<\/a>\u00a0a massive quarantine of the entire city of 11 million, suspending all bus, subway, ferry and long-distance transport systems as of 10 a.m., and have asked residents to remain in the city.<\/p>\n Since its discovery in December, the disease, akin to pneumonia, has spread to regions including Thailand, Japan, South Korea, the U.S., and Singapore. Doctors at several major local hospitals in Wuhan told Caixin that it is estimated that the number of people infected with the epidemic may exceed 6,000.<\/p>\n