SA: Snakes Could Be the Original Source of the New Coronavirus Outbreak in China

New information suggests that the cause of the coronavirus 2019-nCoV outbreak in China may be attributable to the Chinese Krait and Chinese cobra snakes. Since December, 2019, the disease has spread from China and cases have been reported in the United States. Chinese scientists has determined that the pathogen is a new coronavirus, which is in the same family as SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV. Coronaviruses have killed hundreds of people in the past 17 years. The diseases in this family are all zoonotic, meaning that they stem from a spill-over effect from animals to humans. A new publication from the Journal of Medical Virology used genetic analysis of protein codes to determine that those found in 2019-nCoV are most similar to the protein codes from coronaviruses found in snakes. They hypothesize that the pathogen began in bats, was transmitted to snakes, and then to humans via the seafood market in Wuhan, China that also sold meat and reptiles for human consumption.

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