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Coronavirus is likely to be transmitted to humans via bats

2021-03-29T12:11:05.289Z


According to a WHO report, research in China has confirmed hypotheses about the origin of the pandemic. A laboratory leak is therefore ruled out.


Enlarge image

Experts are looking for the origin of the virus in various places - in addition to China, Thailand

Photo: Andre Malerba / ZUMA Wire / imago images

There are still unanswered questions about the origin of the Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus.

The first findings were that it was transferred to humans on a larger scale at an animal market in Wuhan, China.

But rumors kept circulating that the virus could also have been released in a laboratory accident - and that the pandemic then took its course.

The report of an expert commission of the World Health Organization (WHO), for which scientists in China had investigated, was therefore awaited with some excitement.

The previously unpublished result, which was first reported by the AP news agency, confirms the hypothesis of an intermediate animal host and the subsequent transmission to humans.

It is said that the pathogen "probably to very likely" passed from the bat to another animal and from there to humans.

Spread via food is possible, but not likely.

The Dutch virologist Marion Koopmans, who was involved in the study, also confirmed in a radio report that it was spread via two animal species.

The closest relative of the virus that causes Covid-19 was found in bats that carry coronaviruses.

However, the evolutionary distance between these bat viruses and Sars-CoV-2 is estimated to be several decades, suggesting a missing link.

Very similar viruses have been found in pangolins, according to the report.

However, the report also emphasizes that mink and cats are susceptible to the virus, suggesting that they could be carriers.

The hypothesis that the virus escaped from a laboratory, however, was described as extremely unlikely.

This assumption about the origin of the pandemic was expressed by former US President Donald Trump, among others.

A nanoscientist from the University of Hamburg had also advocated such a theory in a controversial paper.

The WHO experts suggested further investigations in all areas into the origin of the virus - with the exception of the hypothesis of the laboratory leak.

International experts in various disciplines such as zoology and epidemiology searched for the origin of the pandemic for several weeks in January.

To do this, they traveled to Wuhan, where the first corona infections were registered in people at the end of 2019.

The virus quickly spread around the world.

In the meantime, more than 127 million infections have been detected;

more than 2.78 million infected people died.

Diplomat stabs report

The WHO mission started with some delay and the report was not presented.

The research into the origin of the pandemic is politically sensitive.

Under the new President Joe Biden, the USA have repeatedly expressed fears that the WHO report would not be able to disclose all findings and indications.

Beijing, on the other hand, emphasizes that the WHO mission in Wuhan was only possible thanks to China's scientific cooperation.

On Monday, AP reportedly received an apparently almost finished version of the report from a Geneva-based diplomat from a WHO member country.

It was not clear if the paper would be changed before it was published.

The diplomat did not want to be named as he was said not to have been authorized to forward the report before it was published.

joe / AFP / AP / dpa

Source: spiegel

All tech articles on 2021-03-29

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