WHO team member Peter Ben Embarek speaking at the press briefing in Wuhan
An investigation led by the World Health Organization (WHO) in China found that the coronavirus most likely spread to humans through an animal host or frozen wildlife products, saying that it’s “extremely unlikely” it came from a laboratory leak.
No further research is needed to look into the theory about a leak, Peter Ben Embarek, a WHO food-safety scientist, said at a joint briefing with China in Wuhan, the city where COVID-19 first appeared at the end of 2019.
The virus could have been introduced to the Huanan wet market in Wuhan, which many of the first COVID-19 patients were linked to, by a person who was infected or by a product that was sold there, Mr. Ben Embarek said. “Among the more interesting products were frozen wildlife animals,” he said. “Some of these species are known to be susceptible to these kinds of viruses.”
The highly anticipated mission followed months of negotiationwith a defensive China to facilitate and cooperate with the probe. Stung by criticism that it initially covered up the extent of the crisis, Chinese state media and officials have promoted the theory that the virus didn’t start in China, but was brought in. The WHO’s validation of a potential cold-chain transmission route supports these claims.
Unpublished instances of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19 causing virus) detections that showed the virus was present outside China before COVID-19 cases emerged in Wuhan indicate studies into the virus’s origins need to be widened to other countries, Liang Wannian, a senior official at China’s National Health Commission, said.
Detailed study
The team of investigators examined tens of thousands of patient samples from Wuhan prior to the emergence of sick people in 2019. There was no evidence of significant outbreaks in the country before December 2019, WHO officials said.
“We embarked on a very detailed and profound search for other cases that may have been missed early on in 2019,” said Ben Embarek. “The conclusion was we did not find evidence of large outbreaks that could be related to cases of COVID-19 prior to December 2019 in Wuhan or elsewhere.”
The panel, comprising 17 Chinese and 17 international experts, looked for clues to understand how the COVID-19 virus spread explosively in Wuhan before causing the worst global pandemic in more than a century. Finding the source will inform efforts to stop the virus, and other pathogens with pandemic potential, spilling over into human populations.
Globally, COVID-19 has caused more than 106 million infections and 2.3 million deaths.
Similar virus in Thailand
Researchers found a coronavirus related to SARS-CoV-2 in bats at a wildlife sanctuary in Thailand, according to a study released recently, another indication of how widespread such viruses are. While highly similar to the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, the Thai version doesn’t appear adapted to spread in humans by the same mechanism, researchers from Thailand and Singapore said in the report.
Scientists still don’t understand if the virus can spread to humans after persisting in frozen conditions, and how that would occur, according to Ben Embarek. More work is needed to study that possible path and trace the source of animal products, he said.
“It’s interesting to explore if a frozen wild animal that was infected could be a potential vehicle for the introduction of the virus into market environments where we know the temperature, humidity, environment could be conducive to rapid spread of the virus,” he said.
The lack of a clear pathway from bats to humans had stoked speculation that the virus might have escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, home to a laboratory that studies bat-borne coronaviruses. Members of the WHO team had visitedthe lab last week.
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