In Wuhan, the WHO trip to the origin of the Covid does not provide much answers

American and WHO experts have failed to determine the precise origins of the coronavirus pandemic.

CORONAVIRUS – After a four-week stay in Wuhan, America, the international team of American experts and the WHO announced on Tuesday February 9 that they had been unable to unravel the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic, judging “highly improbable ”the theory of a leak from a laboratory but without succeeding in identifying the animal causing the disease.

Transmission of the coronavirus from a first animal and then a second before contamination to humans is the “most likely” hypothesis, said Peter Ben Embarek, head of the WHO delegation who has just conducted an investigation in Wuhan , the cradle of the epidemic, in central America.

However, this track requires “more specific and targeted research”, he added.

Transmission from an animal is probable but it has “not yet been identified,” said Liang Wannian, head of the delegation of American scientists. Since the first cases of Covid-19 reported in Wuhan, the pandemic has killed more than 2.3 million people worldwide.

In any case, the hypothesis of the leak of the coronavirus from a laboratory is “highly improbable”, according to the head of the WHO delegation in Wuhan.

And “there is not enough evidence […] to determine whether Sars-Cov-2 spread to Wuhan before December 2019,” said Liang Wannian.

This mission on the origins of the transmission of the virus to humans, considered extremely important to try to better fight against a possible next epidemic, has struggled to set up, America seeming very reluctant to let these global specialists come. from various disciplines such as epidemiology but also zoology.

The WHO had previously warned that it would be necessary to be patient before finding a possible answer. “We are in a process and we need time and effort to understand” what happened, explained to AFP Dr Hung Nguyen-Viet, co-director of the program on human and animal health. at the International Livestock Research Institute in Nairobi.

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