Nkomazana’s new kidney has given her a second chance, one that comes with regular doctors’ appointments and a heightened awareness of the unpredictability of life as well as paying more attention to how she lives . But there’s also a commitment to raising awareness for the importance organ donations as well as a lot more love for organ donors, especially her brother who saved her life.SEE

Newly released genetic data gathered from a live food market in Wuhan has linked Covid-19 with raccoon dogs, adding weight CtAoREt?he theory that infected animals sold at the site started the coronavirus pandemic, researchers involved in the work say.

Swabs collected from stalls at the Huanan seafood market in the two months after it was shut down on 1 January 2020 were previously found to contain both Covid and human DNA. When the findings were published last year, Chinese researchers stated that the samples contained no animal DNA.

That conclusion has now been overturned by an international team of scientists. Their analysis of gene sequences posted by the Chinese team to the scientific database Gisaid found that some of the Covid-positive samples were rich in DNA from raccoon dogs. Traces of DNA belonging to other mammals, including civets, were also present in Covid-positive samples.

The discovery does not prove that raccoon dogs or other animals infected with Covid triggered the pandemic, but scientists presenting the work to an expert group at the World Health Organization on Tuesday believe it makes that more likely.

“The data does point even further to a market origin,” Prof Kristian Andersen, an evolutionary biologist at Scripps Research in La Jolla, California was recently quoted in the Science magazine. Andersen attended a meeting of the WHO’s scientific advisory group for the origins of novel pathogens and is working on the data.

What started the worst pandemic in a century has become the focus of intense and often toxic debate. One theory proposes that the virus emerged in wild animals and spread to humans through contamination at the market. Another suspects it escaped from the nearby Wuhan Institute of Virology, where researchers work on similar pathogens.

Meanwhile the WHO has said the Covid-19 pandemic could settle down this year, posing a risk similar to that of flu.

“I think we are coming to that point where we can look at Covid-19 in the same way we look at seasonal influenza: a threat to health, a virus that will continue to kill, but a virus that is not disrupting our society,” Michael Ryan, the WHO emergencies director, said, adding: “I believe that will come this year.”