Image Source: INDIA TV

While bats may be the original hosts of the novel Chinese coronavirus, an animal sold at a seafood market in Wuhan may be spreading the deadly virus to humans, a study published in The Lancet journal suggests. The analysis of 10 gene sequences of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) from nine patients in the central Chinese city of Wuhan found that the virus is most closely related to two bat-derived SARS-like coronaviruses.

The researchers, including those from the Shandong Academy of Medical Sciences in China, said that their analysis suggests that bats might be the original host of the virus.

However, an animal sold at the Huanan seafood market might represent an intermediate host that enables the emergence of the virus in humans, they said.