2019_nCoV/SARS-CoV-2: rapid classification of betacoronaviruses and identification of Traditional Chinese Medicine as potential origin of zoonotic coronaviruses

Wassenaar, T.M.; Zou, Y.

Although it was not our aim to develop improved detection methods (for which we would have to experimentally test any proposed target region), our findings can be a starting point for such studies. It has been proposed, though not yet proven, that 2019_nCoV naturally propagates in bats, but the bat species in which the population mainly resides was unknown at the time of writing. The food market of Wuhan may or may not have been selling bats for food; however, bats and their excrements are often used in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), which may be a reason for their legal or illegal trading. It is also possible that the virus had infected another mammal that was traded at the market and served as the source of the infection. Such a case has been proposed for Malayan pangolins (Liu et al. 2019 ), a meat delicacy that was most likely sold in the exotic meat market. Such cross-infection could also have occurred during handling, storage or selling prior to animals reaching the food market. The case for pangolins being the actual source of 2019_nCoV has not yet been proven, but was referred from sequence similarities (Liu et al. 2019) . Even in this scenario there must have been a reason why an infected bat came in the vicinity of a pangolin that ended up in the market, for which only bat species with local commercial value come into question.