A World Health Organization team investigating the origins of the coronavirus pandemic downplayed the possibility that the virus leaked from a laboratory near Wuhan, China, during a news conference on Tuesday.
Instead, the coronavirus probably spread from an animal to humans, said WHO food safety and animal disease expert Peter Ben Embarek. WHO and China faced strong criticism from around the world for their response to the pandemic, as China prevented WHO investigators from entering Wuhan for months; they finally arrived in mid-January this year.
“Our initial findings suggest that introduction via an intermediate host species is the most likely route and that it will require more studies and more specific and targeted research,” Embarek told reporters.
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“However, the findings suggest that the hypothesis of laboratory incidents is extremely unlikely to explain the introduction of the virus into the human population,” said Embarek. “Therefore, it is not a hypothesis that we advise to suggest future studies … for understanding the origin of the virus.”
Embarek made the assessment at the end of a visit to the city of Wuhan, in central China, where a team of scientists is investigating the possible origins of the coronavirus. The first cases were discovered in the city in December 2019.
Peter Ben Embarek, of the World Health Organization team, holding a chart showing the routes of transmission of the virus during a press conference held at the end of the WHO mission in Wuhan, China, on Tuesday.
(AP Photo / Ng Han Guan)
The Wuhan Institute of Virology collected extensive samples of the virus, leading to claims that it may have caused the original outbreak by leaking the virus to the neighboring community. China strongly rejected this possibility and promoted other theories that the virus may have originated elsewhere. The team is considering several theories of how the disease ended in humans.
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The WHO team has experts from 10 countries. Its mission is to be an initial step to investigate the origins of the virus, which is believed to have originated in bats before being transmitted to man by another species of wild animal, such as a pangolin or bamboo rat, considered an exotic delicacy by some in the China.
A view of the P4 lab inside the Wuhan Institute of Virology is seen after a visit by the World Health Organization team in Wuhan last week.
(AP Photo / Ng Han Guan)
Transmission through the trade in frozen products was also a possibility, said Embarek.
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Critics of the WHO say that China has an extraordinary influence on the global health organism. President Biden said he would engage with WHO again – reversing former President Donald Trump’s departure from the controversial UN body due to the way he handled the early days of the COVID-19 crisis.
The Associated Press and Adam Shaw of Fox News contributed to this report.