The China-WHO Joint Expert Group on Novel Coronavirus Traceability Research held a press conference on February 9. At the meeting, Peter Ben Enbarek, head of the WHO expert group, said that claims of a laboratory virus leak are extremely unlikely and that no future research will be conducted on the matter.
It is reported that the three experts who participated in the conference are Liang Wannian, former director of the Department of Institutional Reform of the National health Commission of China and currently executive vice dean of the Vanke School of Public Health and Wellness and Vanke Chair Professor at Tsinghua University, Peter Ben Enbarek, a Danish WHO scientist, and Marion Koopmans, a Dutch virologist. According to the Task Order (TOR) agreed between China and WHO in July 2020, WHO sent an international team of experts to Wuhan on January 14, 2021, nearly a year after the known outbreak of the New crown outbreak in January of the same year, to form a joint expert group with Chinese experts and divide it into three groups: epidemiology, molecular traceability, and animals and environment, to work together on traceability.
At the meeting, Ambarek listed four hypotheses for the transmission of the new coronavirus to humans. Among them, a pathway that introduces the virus to humans through an intermediate host, i.e., infecting animals that are closer to humans first and then infecting them to humans, is the most likely. In addition, infection of humans through the channel of cold-chain Food is also more likely. He said that claims of laboratory virus leakage are extremely unlikely and that no future research will be conducted on this.
Ambarek said the WHO team’s work uncovered new information, but did not significantly change their view of the outbreak. He said at the nearly three-hour press conference that “it probably took a very long and winding road from whatever the original animal species was all the way to the South China market, which also involved cross-border movement.” He said efforts to determine the source of the new coronavirus point to natural hosts in bats, but they are unlikely to be in Wuhan.
Ambarek said investigators are also looking for blood samples from China that may indicate the virus circulated earlier than initially thought. “In trying to understand the situation in December 2019, we began a very detailed and profound search for other cases that may have been missed, earlier in 2019,” he said. He stated, “And the conclusion was that we found no evidence of a large outbreak in Wuhan or elsewhere that could be associated with cases of the new coronavirus (COVID-19) before December 2019.”
Participating, Liang Wannian, the Chinese leader of the joint expert mission, said, “No unidentified circulations of new coronaviruses were seen in Wuhan in the second half of 2019. A review of more than 4,500 early samples in Hubei during the same period also showed no relevant findings.” In presenting the results of the molecular epidemiology traceability study, he said, “There is no evidence of outbreak transmission in Wuhan before December 2019.”
Ambarek said, “The possibility that the virus leaked from the laboratory, which has been the subject of conspiracy theories is highly unlikely and does not require further study.” Liang Wannian suggested at the meeting that the joint study belongs to the Chinese part of the global traceability study of SARS and new coronaviruses, and that the study report, based on the research base of global and Chinese scientists in the past, will lay the foundation for the traceability work in other countries and regions. This shows that we cannot rule out that it (the virus) is spreading in other regions where transmission is not reported”, he said.
Ambarek said the gene sequence of the new coronavirus sampled in Wuhan is highly similar to that of the new coronavirus present in bats. The South China Seafood Market sells mainly frozen, seafood as well as farmed animal products. Further research will be done in the future across the country and in the supply chain, including imported food parties.
Recent Comments