International task force finds COVID-19 origins ‘most likely zoonotic’ and warns of a failure to reduce animal-to-human transmission

Almost three years into the COVID-19 pandemic, a team of international experts says the world has still not dealt what it says is the “most likely” cause of the virus: animal-to-human transmission. 

The taskforce was created last year to assess available evidence on what drove the origins and early spread of COVID-19 and provide “evidence-based recommendations” to reduce the impact and improve responses to such outbreaks.

In the new report, released today, it found the world had “largely failed” to meet the challenge to be better prepared to prevent or respond adequately enough to the next pandemic.

The report says the world still doesn’t have strategies for preventing zoonotic transmission — animal-to-human virus spread — and, according to the experts, this will only get worse with climate change and urban sprawl.

One of the Australian-based members of group, the Doherty Institute’s Danielle Anderson, said it looked at “all the evidence” and determined that the origins of COVID-19 were “most likely zoonotic”. 

The group’s findings come on the back of two studies released earlier this year that found that the COVID-19 pandemic likely originated in a market where live animals were sold in Wuhan, China.

However, in June, The World Health Organization said its latest investigation into the origins of COVID-19 was inconclusive, largely because data from China was missing.

Dr Anderson said any circumstance where there was increased interaction between humans and animals — as a result of climate change and urban development — then there was a chance for a potential spillover of viruses.

“[That is] whether they’re known to us, or new, previously unknown viruses,” Dr Anderson said.

According to Jane Halton, from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations — who is not part of the taskforce — sharpening the focus on the interaction between animals and humans was a “crucial lesson” from the pandemic. 

“What we have been experiencing the last three years [is] a consequence of a virus making the transition from an animal to a human, one that we had no capacity to respond to,” she said.

The report, which makes five major recommendations, calls for a “One Health” strategy to prevent future pandemics, involving more collaboration across jurisdictions and different areas of health. 

“This means looking at places where viruses could possibly emerge,” Dr Anderson said. 

“Working with people in those different countries and looking at, if there’s cases of illness in either humans or in animals, and being prepared to catch things very early on, essentially as soon as they happen.”

Targeting disease ‘hot spots’

The taskforce’s main recommendation is to identify high-threat potential pathogens among people, wildlife and domestic animals and target those disease “hot spots”. 

This is known as “smart surveillance” and could involve monitoring and sampling places such as wet animal markets, similar to the one in Wuhan.

Dr Anderson said it also involved deeper surveillance, such as examining people who worked closely with animals, such as animal traders, carers or those who work in abattoirs.

“Perhaps their blood could be taken periodically and look at what antibodies they have in their body to know what they’ve been exposed to,” Dr Anderson said.

“If people are sick, then [we’d] ask the questions of: ‘Do you work with animals?’ or ‘Have you had contact with animals?'”

Dr Anderson said this involved more people actively doing groundwork and “paying closer attention to little things to try to pick up clusters early”.