World Health Organization (W.H.O.) investigators say it is “extremely unlikely” the coronavirus leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China. It is more likely to have jumped to humans from animals. The visit to the country’s central Hubei province has wrapped up.
Leader of the W.H.O. team, Peter Embarek, said instead of investigating laboratories in the country, the first cluster of cases was detected in frozen meats sold at Wuhan’s wet market. The market should be pursued as a line of inquiry.
As reported by AP., “Our initial findings suggest that the introduction through an intermediary host species is the most likely pathway and one that will require more studies and more specific, targeted research,” Embarek said.
“However, the findings suggest that the laboratory incidents hypothesis is extremely unlikely to explain the introduction of the virus to the human population,” Embarek said.
While backing Beijing, the claims of transmission “in Wuhan or elsewhere” in China before December 2019 were dismissed. Despite the allegations, the virus was circulating globally months earlier.
Reuters reports, Professor Liang Winnian, China’s Health Commission expert, told the same press briefing he agreed. There had been no substantial of the virus within a city of 11 million people before the outbreak of late 2019.
Winnian said the origin of coronavirus likely is from animals to humans through bat remains. The original hose “has not been identified.”
Samples of coronavirus found in bats and pangolins are similar but not identical to humans’ viruses.
Studies show the coronavirus “can be carried long-distance on cold chain products,” a nod to the theory of possible importation of the virus, Winnian claims. In recent months in China, This is a point that has gained strength.
Authorities of China are keeping a tight hold on information about the possible cause of the pandemic. More than 105 million people have been sickened, and 2.2 million people worldwide have been killed by the coronavirus.