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Experts also say that there was no substantial spread of SARS-COV-2 in Wuhan before the outbreak in late 2019.
A mission of World Health Organization (WHO) experts investigating the origins of the coronavirus pandemic in China has said it has yet to identify the animal source of the SARS-COV-2 virus, which has so far killed more than 2.3 million people around the world. the world.
Liang Wannian, an expert with the Chinese National Health Commission, told reporters in the central city of Wuhan that the joint Chinese and WHO team of 34 experts believe the virus originated in an animal, “but the host reservoir has yet to be identified. “
Wuhan is the city in which the virus was first identified, and Liang said there was no evidence to suggest the virus was spreading in the city before the first official cases were recorded in December 2019.
He also went on to suggest that the virus might have been circulating in other regions before being identified in China.
A review of the research literature that included “unpublished studies from different countries suggests that the circulation of SARS-Cov-2 precedes the initial detection of cases by several weeks,” he said.
“Some of the suspected positive samples were detected even earlier than the first reported case. This indicates the possibility of wrongly declared circulation in other regions. “
Analysis of the records of respiratory diseases reported in hospitals in Wuhan and the surrounding province of Hubei shows that “there is no substantial unrecognized circulation of SARS-COV-2 in Wuhan during the latter part of 2019,” it added.
WHO foreign expert Ben Embarak, who was in the WHO Beijing office for two years starting in 2009, backed up the claim saying there was no evidence of “large outbreaks in Wuhan” before then.
The mission is diplomatically complicated, which was dragged down before it began by fears of a cover-up, with the United States demanding a “robust” investigation and China responding with a warning not to “politicize” the investigation.
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