WHO mission to China says lab leak 'extremely unlikely', says COVID-19 source unclear

The World Health Organisation (WHO) team, which is currently in China to investigate the origin of the COVID-19 virus, has said that it is "extremely unlikely" the disease spread from a virology lab in Wuhan as suggested by some in the Western countries. Ben Embarek, head of WHO mission, during a press briefing on Tuesday, said the hypothesis suggesting the spread of the virus through lab leak is unlikely and no further studies will be carried regarding the same. 

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"The laboratory incident hypothesis is extremely unlikely to explain the introduction of the virus into the human population. Therefore is not in the hypotheses that we will suggest for future studies," Embarek said on Tuesday. 

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'Animal source still unclear'

The WHO team said that it went to China with two key objectives - one was to better understand what happened at the beginning of the event in December 2019, when the virus was first identified in Wuhan, and second, was to determine how the virus emerged and whether it was circulating prior to December 2019. The WHO team said in terms of the understanding of what happened in Wuhan at the beginning of the pandemic remains the same with just minor addition to the details. 

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The primary source of the virus still remains unclear as WHO scientists dismissed the spread from bats to humans, saying Wuhan is not a city close to bat population, hence spread from bats is highly unlikely. "The work to identify the possible animal sources is still under progress," the WHO team said. However, the team did confirm that the virus spread from the animal market in Wuhan, where it was suspected earlier by global experts. The WHO team said a detailed report about the mission will be published in the coming weeks. 

The WHO team has been in China for over a month now to investigate the origin of the COVID-19 virus. The visit was marred by controversies even before the international team reached China. WHO had to negotiate for months with Chinese authorities before the agency secured a visit for its investigating team. 

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