BEIJING

A Chinese scientist has claimed that the COVID-19 virus may have originated from humans.

China's State Council's Information Office held a press conference in Beijing on Saturday to discuss latest findings in the origins-tracing of the virus.

Scientists claimed that the DNA data shared in Nature, an international scientific journal, showed that strains found in samples from the Huanan seafood market in Wuhan, where the first cases emerged, are more likely to have come from humans.

Researchers analyzed more than 1,300 DNA samples collected from animals and the environment in the market.

There was no coronavirus in any of the 457 animal samples examined, which invalidates the possibility of transmission from animals.

“These findings indicate that in the cases on the market, the virus was transmitted from other people, not from animals sold,” said Tong Yigang of the Beijing University of Chemical Technology.

There was not yet sufficient evidence to back up recent studies that had suggested raccoon dogs were the origin of the coronavirus, he added.

The professor said there was also no data on the possibility that the virus may have been created in a laboratory.

The first cases of the COVID-19 pandemic were reported in Wuhan city of central China, in December 2019, and later spread across the world. It was declared a global pandemic and claimed millions of lives.

*Writing by Gozde Bayar