WHO has published its report on the origin of …

World Health Organization (WHO) expert report on the origin of the coronavirus has finally been released. The scientists’ mission is of the opinion that the virus was transmitted to humans via an intermediate animal by a bat and practically dismissed the thesis according to which the pandemic was born in a laboratory, a hypothesis which they deem “not very credible”.

The publication of this joint report by the WHO and Chinese scientists comes fifteen months after the first cases appeared in Wuhan, central China, and after the pandemic killed at least 2.7 million people in the world and devastated the planetary economy.

Report fails to come to an exact conclusion on the origin of the coronavirus, but underlines that it is necessary to study in an area larger than China. For experts, transmission of the virus that causes covid-19 via an intermediate animal is a hypothesis “between probable and very probable”.

Scientists are turning to the hitherto accepted theory that the virus was likely transmitted from a bat to humans via another animal that has not yet been identified.. However, the possibility of direct transmission between the original animal and humans is still considered between “possible and probable”.

The report concludes, as experts had already anticipated before ending their mission to China in February, that it is “extremely unlikely” that the coronavirus was due to an accident or a leak of pathogens from a laboratory .

The government of former US President Donald Trump accused the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is investigating very dangerous coronaviruses, of letting the virus escape, either voluntarily or unintentionally. The Institute was one of the places visited by the WHO mission.

The experts, who arrived in China in early January, also conducted studies on the Huanan market in Wuhan and other markets in the city but no “element confirming the presence of infected animals” was found. “There should be surveys in larger areas and in more countries,” the report concludes.