"It's highly unlikely that the virus came from the lab"

An international team of Chinese experts from World Health Organization (WHO) said it was extremely unlikely that coronavirus leaked from a China lab in Wuhan.

Izvor: Beta

Tuesday, 09.02.2021.

14:30

Foto: EPA-EFE/ROMAN PILIPEY

"It's highly unlikely that the virus came from the lab"

They said that the animal from which the coronavirus originated was not found. They add that there is no indication that the virus was present in the Chinese city of Wuhan long before it was discovered.

According to Liang Wannian, a Chinese expert from Tsinghua University, bats and pangolins have been ruled out as possible sources of coronavirus.

"Coronaviruses that are most closely related to SARS-CoV-2 can be found in bats and pangolins, suggesting that they could be a reservoir of virus that causes COVID-19 based on the great similarity and sequence between standard viruses and SARS-CoV-2. However, the viruses identified so far are not similar enough to the SARS-CoV-2 virus to be the direct roots of SARS-CoV-2", Liang told a news conference by World Health Organization experts.

However, Peter Ben Embarek, a WHO expert on food safety, said that research into the origin of the coronavirus so far suggests a natural source were bats, although it is unlikely that they were in Wuhan.

"It was not possible to determine any animal species as a potential source of this disease, and everything indicates that currently, and during 2019, there was no circulation of this virus in any animal species in the country," said the expert.

He added that the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic was most likely caused by the introduction of the virus through an intermediary host species, while it is extremely unlikely that the virus leaked from the laboratory.

“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.

The first cases of coronavirus were registered in December 2019 in Wuhan, and the epidemic then spread to the whole world.

To date, more than 2.3 million people worldwide have died from coronavirus.

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