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WHO-China study says very unlikely Wuhan lab was coronavirus source
The report, due to be released Tuesday, said the virus was most likely transmitted to humans from unidentified animals.
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Health workers in personal protection suits stand next to buses at a cordoned-off section at the international arrivals area, where arriving travellers are to be taken into quarantine, at the international airport in Wuhan on January 14, 2021, following the arrival of a World Health Organization (WHO) team investigating the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic. (Agence France-Presse/Nicolas Asfouri)
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joint study conducted by the World Health Organization and China on the origins of the novel coronavirus concluded that it is "extremely unlikely" that it escaped from a laboratory in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, a copy of its report obtained by Kyodo News showed Monday.
The report, due to be released Tuesday, said the virus was most likely transmitted to humans from unidentified animals.
Viruses similar to the novel coronavirus have been found in bats and pangolins, but the intermediate animal host from which it was transmitted to humans has yet to be traced.
The report, based on a study carried out by a team of international experts, suggested that minks and cats, which are known to be susceptible to infection, could be among potential animal hosts.
The administration of former U.S. President Donald Trump advanced a theory that the Wuhan Institute of Virology might be the birthplace of the virus, claiming some researchers there developed symptoms consistent with COVID-19 in the fall of 2019.
The team said it had found no evidence to support the claim during a visit it made between January and February this year to the Chinese city to investigate the origins of the virus.
Safety management at the institute and two other nearby laboratories was appropriate and there were no cases of infection among staff at those facilities before December 2019, when the first human cases of the novel coronavirus in Wuhan were identified by China.
Chinese authorities have claimed that the virus might have been brought into the country by frozen food imports.
The team's report said such transmission is possible but that it is not verifiable as imported frozen products were not considered a potential infection route early in the virus' spread and there was no testing of them at the time.
The team, which drew up the report with China, was formed by experts from various countries and officials from the WHO, the World Organization for Animal Health, and the Food and Agriculture Organization.
The team, which underwent two weeks of quarantine after entering Wuhan in mid-January, inspected the institute and other sites thought to be connected with the virus such as a seafood market. It also had discussions with Chinese experts.
