Covid-19 likely passed to humans from bat through intermediary animal
GENEVA: An international expert mission to Wuhan concluded in a report seen yesterday that Covid-19 likely first passed to humans from a bat through an intermediary animal, with investigators all but ruling out a laboratory leak.
The intermediate host hypothesis was deemed "likely to very likely", while the theory that the virus escaped from a lab was seen as "extremely unlikely", according to a copy of the long-awaited final report obtained by AFP before its official release.
The report from the international mission to Wuhan has been keenly anticipated ever since the expert team left China more than a month ago.
In the 15 months since the coronavirus emerged, the pandemic has killed nearly 2.8 million people and shredded the global economy.
POSSIBLE TO LIKELY
Experts believe that the Sars-CoV-2 virus that causes the Covid-19 disease originally came from bats.
One theory examined was that the virus jumped directly from bats to humans. The final report determined that this scenario was "possible to likely".
A more likely scenario, the report found, was that the virus had first jumped from bats to another animal, which in turn infected humans.
The report also examined the idea of a lab leak from, for instance, the Wuhan Institute of Virology - a theory promoted by former US president Donald Trump's administration.
It pointed to the fact that there was no record of any virus resembling Sars-CoV-2 in any laboratory before December 2019 and stressed high safety levels at the labs in Wuhan.
"A laboratory origin of the pandemic was considered to be extremely unlikely," the report said.
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreysus acknowledged the 400-page report but declined to give details. He said: "All hypotheses are on the table and warrant complete and further studies." - AFP, REUTERS
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