Coronavirus “likely” originated from bats – a yet-to-be-released WHO-China report says.

 WHO-China report on the origins of the coronavirus indicates that the source of the virus was bats transmitted to humans through another animal. The report rules out lab leak as “extremely unlikely” the cause of the virus as suggested earlier.

Release of the report has been delayed severally raising questions about the Chinese side’s intentions regarding how to skew the final anguage of the report in the hopes of averting blame.

The cited document is still a draft and could be changed before its official release. But from the draft report, DNT can report the following scenarios that researchers pointed to.

First it was “likely to very likely” that a yet to be identified second animal transmitted the virus from bats to humans. The closest relative of the virus that causes Covid-19 was found in bats.

But the researchers suggested that “the evolutionary distance between these bat viruses and SARS-CoV-2 is estimated to be several decades” and a possible “missing link.”

Researchers also said that the coronavirus spread through “cold-chain” food products was unlikely although they left the possibility open.

The report was arrived at after a WHO team arrived in Wuhan to ascertain the origins of the coronavirus. The team was initially barred from visiting the Wuhan lab for days but the Chinese eventually bowed to global pressure and allowed the WHO team to conduct its study alongside its Chinese counterparts.

The expert who led the WHO team on the China mission has said that the report has been finalized and is being fact-checked before being released publicly in the next few days.

DNT News, Geneva

………………………………………………………………