Scientists claim to have discovered the exact location where the Covid pandemic began.
Since 2020, the world has been grappling with the virus which has swept the globe as countries issued lockdowns and millions of people died.
The origins of the virus has always been a contentious issue with various theories, including some claims it came from a lab leak.
But now, two scientific papers have backed a long-held theory that it originated in a wet market in Wuhan, China, the Mirror reports.
The papers, both published by Science, claim the virus was originally transmitted from animals to humans in the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market.
Scientists claim that the first Covid cases in humans came from the market in late November and early December 2019 - a whole four months before the UK was plunged into lockdown.
Their research suggests that caged animals were infected with the virus and sold at the market. This led to the spread of the disease to vendors and customers who in turn passed it onto other humans.
An international team of scientists conducted the peer-reviewed research and have said that the market was "likely" the “epicentre of the Covid-19 pandemic”.
In their study, they wrote that knowing the origin of Covid was of vital importance to prevent a similar outbreak in the future.
They said: “The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China, was identified as a likely source of cases in early reports but later this conclusion became controversial.
“We show the earliest known COVID-19 cases from December 2019, including those without reported direct links, were geographically centred on this market.
“We report that live SARS-CoV-2 susceptible mammals were sold at the market in late 2019 and, within the market, SARS-CoV-2-positive environmental samples were spatially associated with vendors selling live mammals.”
They admitted there was “insufficient evidence” to define “upstream events” but their analysis indicated that the market was the epicentre of the global pandemic.
Speaking to NPR, evolutionary biologist Michael Worobey, who led one of the studies, said that when they had mapped out a number of the early cases they were clustered around the market.
He said: "From the clinical observations in Wuhan, around half of the earliest known Covid cases were people directly linked to the seafood market.
"And the other cases, which aren't linked through epidemiological data, have an even closer geographical association to the market.
"That's what we show in our paper. It's absurd how strong the geographical association is."
He said the odds of the virus having an origin point beyond the market was about “1 in 10,000”.
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