The Source Of The Wuhan Flu Virus, Suspected To Have Come From A Snake

Snake illustration (Pixabay)

JAKARTA - The world community was shocked by the spread of the new corona virus outbreak from the city of Wuhan in China. The spread of the virus has killed hundreds of people in China. There are researchers who say, the source of the virus comes from the krait or cobra type snake. Is that right?

As is known, the nCoV virus or Wuhan Flu is still in the same family as the SARS and MERS viruses. The two viruses both attack the respiratory system and have killed hundreds of people in the past 17 years, as quoted by channelnewsasia.

The Origin of the New Corona Virus

The name of this new corona virus actually comes from its shape, which resembles a crown or sun's corona when imaged using an electron microscope.

Coronavirus is transmitted through the air and infects the respiratory tract or digestive tract of mammals and birds.

Although most viruses from the coronavirus family only cause mild flu-like symptoms during infection, SARS and MERS can infect the upper and lower airways and cause severe respiratory illness and other complications in humans.

Meanwhile studies have revealed that the original source of SARS and MERS was bats. Then the virus that comes from bats is also spread by civets and camels to humans.

As is known, the coronavirus outbreak that spreads in Wuhan has spread to workers or customers in a seafood wholesale market that also sells processed meat and consumption animals such as poultry, donkeys, sheep, pigs, camels, foxes, civets, bamboo rats, hedgehogs and reptiles.

Meanwhile, because the corona virus has never been reported to have infected aquatic animals, it is reasonable that there is a suspicion that the corona virus may have originated from animals other than those sold at the Wuhan seafood market.

The hypothesis that the coronavirus is not an animal on the market is supported by new research in the journal Medical Virology. The scientists conducted an analysis and compared the genetic sequences of 2019-nCoV (the new coronavirus) and all other known coronaviruses.

The study of the new corona virus revealed that this virus was most similar to the two samples found in bats, which were similar to the SARS virus. Furthermore, the study suggests that the bat virus may have mutated before infecting a person.

However, when researchers conducted a more detailed bioinformatics analysis of the new coronavirus, they showed that the 2019-nCoV virus likely originated from a snake.

#ChinesePneumonia: horror story in 4 words— "I come from #Wuhan 🇨🇳" #WuhanSARS #WuhanPneumonia #China #ChinaPneumonia pic.twitter.com/GchYSTeD1N

- @Dystopia (@ Dystopia992) January 20, 2020

From bats to snakes

From this study, they analyzed the corona virus protein code and then compared it with the corona virus protein code found in different animals, such as birds, snakes, guinea pigs, hedgehogs, bats, and humans. The results were surprising, the new corona virus or 2019-nCoV, the protein code most similar to the virus protein code in snakes.

The fact that the new corona virus is found in snakes is getting stronger when in the Wuhan seafood market there are indeed people selling snakes. In addition, as is well known, snakes often prey on bats. So it's possible that the virus could have moved from bats to snakes. Then in the case of the spread of this new corona, the virus from snakes spreads to humans.

However, further research is needed to verify the origin of the virus through laboratory experiments. The reason is, research on snakes in the Wuhan market has not been carried out.