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The first conclusions of the report on the origins of covid-19 by experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) and Chinese authorities were known this Monday. In these It is ruled out that the pandemic had its origin in a laboratory.
Joint WHO and Chinese Expert Report Arrives 15 months after the first cases appeared in Wuhan, central China, and after the pandemic has claimed at least 2.7 million lives worldwide and devastated the world economy.
The report, of which press agencies obtained a copy and will be officially published this Tuesday, does not create any surprise or solve the mystery of the origin of the virus, although stresses the need for studies in an area larger than China.
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“All hypotheses are on the table and deserve more in-depth studies,” said the director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in your first reaction to this document.
For experts, the transmission of the virus that causes covid-19 via an intermediate animal is a hypothesis “between probable and very probable”. Specifically, They lean on the hitherto accepted theory that the virus was probably transmitted from a bat to man via another unidentified animal. However, the possibility of a direct transmission between the initial animal and man is still considered between “possible and probable”.
The report concludes, as the experts already advanced before finishing their mission in China in February, that it is “extremely unlikely” that the coronavirus is due to an accident or a pathogen escape from a laboratory. The government of the former US president Donald trump He had accused the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which investigates highly dangerous coronaviruses, of having let the virus escape, voluntarily or inadvertently. Experts say they did not study the possibility of such a deliberate act.
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The experts further note that the studies carried out in the Huanan market of Wuhan and other markets in the city they did not serve to find “elements that confirm the presence of infected animals”. “There must be investigations in larger areas and in a greater number of countries,” the report concludes. Therefore, the WHO asks for patience because the answers will take time to arrive.
Intermediate animal
The experts of the World Health Organization (WHO) They suspect that the polecat badger is one of the possible intermediaries in the transmission of the coronavirus from bats to humans. In their report, these experts recall on page 96 a list of animals that could have played the role of vector, from cats, rabbits or minks to less common species like pangolins. The report also mentions the civet and polecat badger, two species that were carriers of Sars in the early 2000s in China’s Canton (south) province.
The Wuhan Laboratory
The mission of the WHO team in Wuhan It included a stop at the Institute of Virology, where they met with Chinese scientists. Team leader Peter Ben Embarek said at the end of the mission that the theory of a laboratory leak was “highly unlikely” and that it would not be among the “hypotheses” they will suggest “for future studies.” The mission found nothing to reverse the general consensus in the scientific community about a natural origin of the pathogen.
But questions about the lab persist. Critics say that the WHO team had its hands tied by the strict protocols imposed by the Chinese hosts. The team members spent four hours in the Institute of Virology, and only one hour in the market, after having spent two weeks in their quarantined hotel without being able to set foot in the city.
In an interview with AFP, Ben Embarek expressed his “frustration” at the lack of access to raw data during his stay in China. US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan expressed his “deep concern” about the way the mission was carried out and urged China to make available “its data from the first days of the outbreak.”
These conclusions do not differ from those that the head of the mission, Peter Ben Embarek, already advanced at the press conference on February 9 in Wuhan, at the end of the visit of experts, who had the collaboration of his Chinese counterparts. The mission consisted of scientists from the United States, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Denmark, Australia, Vietnam, Germany and Qatar, coming not only from WHO, but also from the United Nations Organization for the Food and Agriculture (FAO) and the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE).
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The analyzes of this group of world specialists in the place where the pandemic broke out were considered crucial to fight this pandemic and others in the future. But the mission had many problems to carry out due to the reluctance of the Chinese authorities to receive these world experts.
AFP
