Virus did not ‘escape’ from Wuhan lab– WHO experts

WORLD Health Organization (WHO) experts who investigated the allegation by Western governments and their corporate media that the SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) originated from China, in particular, that the virus “escaped” from a Chinese bioweapons’ laboratory based in the city of Wuhan, concluded that the allegation is not supported by any evidence and therefore, false.

At a press conference last February 9, 2021, the health and medical experts comprising the ‘WHO-convened Global Study of Origins of SARS-CoV-2: China part,’ instead maintained that the virus could have entered China thru the ‘cold process chain’ involving shipments of frozen foods into China or from animals thru the food chain, although both would still need further study.

The visit to Wuhan and other parts of China by the WHO experts beginning on January 14, 2021 and which concluded early in February, was the result of the previous discussions between the Chinese authorities and WHO director general, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

The full text of the global press conference organized by the National Health Commission of China, together with the WHO, was uploaded to the Internet last March 15, 2021, by CGTN.

Comprising the panel of experts who fielded questions from the press are, Mi Feng, spokesperson, NHC, moderator; Peter Ben Embarek, WHO, food safety expert and overall team leader; Madam Marion Koopmans, team leader, molecular epidemiology group and, Prof. Liang Wannian, Tsinghua University and team leader, Chinese side.

Overall, the joint international team comprises 17 Chinese experts and 17 international experts from ten other countries, representing not only WHO but also, the World Organization of Animal Health and partners in the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN).

The joint study team carried out its research over a 28-day period, from January 14, 2021 to February 10, 2021, in Wuhan.

In his opening remarks, Mi said the study was a result of the “consensus” between China and WHO and China’s “firm support” to WHO “in terms of unleashing the role of WHO in the leadership of the global COVID-19 response.”

Prof. Liang, the first to make the presentation, also added that the joint study/research, was in accordance with China’s agreement to the resolution passed in May 2020, of the WHO’s governing body, the 73^RD World Health Assembly, “to work with the partners to identify zoonotic source of the causative virus of COVID-19, and the route of its introduction to the human population, including the possible role of the intermediate hosts.”

“We also looked, for example, at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, P4 level laboratory and the states of that laboratory. And it was very unlikely that anything could escape from such a place”— Peter Embarek, WHO team leader

“The aim was to prevent reinfection with the virus in animals and humans and prevent the establishment of a new zoonotic reservoir, as well as to reduce further risk of emergence and transmission of zoonotic diseases,” Liang said.

Since July 2020, Liang added that both the Chinese government and WHO have been discussing the “groundwork” for the study of the virus, including the ‘TORs’ (term of reference) to be observed and followed by the team.

“The WHO Secretariat and the Chinese Government have jointly set up an international multidisciplinary team to design, support and conduct these studies to contribute to the tracing of the origins of SARS-CoV-2 and the route of its transmission to human beings.

“The work of the joint international team was set it as the ground for origin tracing work in other parts of the world,” Mi added.

“Therefore, the global origin tracing work will not be bound to any location and may evolve geographically as increasing amount of evidence is generated and science-based hypotheses keep evolving.

“The overall results and findings will help to improve global preparedness and effective response to SARS-CoV-2, and emerging zoonotic diseases of similar origins,” he added.

“The joint expert team through its three working groups, reviewed and discussed together the progress made by Chinese experts in phase one studies in the following three areas: epidemiology, animals and environment, molecular epidemiology and bioinformatics.

“In addition to the three working groups, the joint international team received detailed presentations on relevant topics to help inform its work and undertook a series of site visits and interviews with key informants,” Mi explained further.

Original source of virus still unknown

Mi went on to reveal that based on their study that while the “progenitor strain of SARS-CoV-2 may have acquired an enhanced ability to infect humans during their circulation” among the possible animal hosts, “the viral sequences with high homology to SARS-CoV-2” suggests that SARS-CoV-2 “may have originated from zoonotic transmission, but the reservoir hosts remain to be identified.” In other words, which or what animal became the primary carrier of the virus before it infected the human population was not clearly established.

The study also concluded that bats and pangolins, which so-called Western “experts” claimed are the sources of the virus, could not be the only sources of the virus.

“Evidence from surveys and targeted studies so far have shown that coronavirus most highly related to SARS-CoV-2 are found in bats and pangolins, suggesting these mammals may be the reservoir of the virus that causes COVID-19, due to high similarity in genetic sequences between the sample virus and SARS-CoV-2.

“However, the viruses identified so far from neither of these two species are sufficiently similar to SARS-CoV-2 to serve as direct progenitor of the SARS-CoV-2,” Mi revealed.

Instead, the experts’ group that further research involving cats (Felidae family) and other carnivorous animals in the ‘Mustelidae family’ such as weasels, badgers, otters, etc., “as potential reservoir” of the virus.

Additionally, the study also did not conclusively prove that the virus originated in Huanan seafood market in Hunan as also claimed by the West and where ‘exotic animals’ are being sold for Chinese consumption.

“The sequence data also showed that some diversity of virus was already present in the early phase of the pandemic in Wuhan, suggesting the possibility of unsampled chains of transmission outside the Huanan market cluster.

“There was no obvious cluster of cases by the epidemiological parameters of raw meat exposure or exposure to fur animals,” Mi said.

Mi also referred to the result of “relevant literature review on the data of early circulation of SARS-CoV-2 from published studies” in other countries, suggesting that SARS-CoV-2 circulation “was possibly several weeks earlier than the initial detection of cases.”

“Some of the suspected positive samples were detected even earlier than the first case reported in Wuhan. This indicates the possibility of the missed diagnosis of cases in the early circulation in other regions (countries)

“There is no indication of the transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 in the population in the period before December 2019. There is not enough evidence either to determine whether SARS-CoV-2 infection had spread in Wuhan before December 2019,” Mi emphasized further.

He also pointed out that while there was an “association” with the Huanan seafood market in some of the early cases of Covid-19, “others were associated with other markets, and other cases have no market’s association at all.”

“It is likely that an outbreak occurred at Huanan Seafood Market. But there are also transmission appearing to have the occurrence elsewhere in Wuhan at the same time. This is our basic judgment.

“It is not possible to determine how SARS-CoV-2 was introduced into the Huanan Market based on the current information, Mi concluded.

Virus did not ‘escape’ from Wuhan lab

For his part, Embarek premised his presentation by saying that they went to Wuhan “with two goals” in mind: to discover “what happened” at the beginning of December 2019 (when the virus started to spread) and, in “trying to understand” how the virus emerged and started infecting humans.

“In trying to understand the picture of December 2019, we embarked on the very detailed, profound search for all the cases that may have been missed, cases early on in 2019… the conclusion was that we did not find evidence of large outbreaks that could be related to cases of COVID-19 prior to December 19 in Wuhan or elsewhere,” Embarek declared.

To deepen their understanding, Embarek said they came out with “four key hypotheses” one of which is verifying the truth about the virus escaping from a laboratory in Wuhan.

“However, the finding suggest that the laboratory incident hypothesis is extremely unlikely, and to explain the introduction of the virus into the human population.

“Therefore, it is not a hypothesis that implies to suggest future studies into our work, to support our future work into the understanding of the origin of the virus,” Embarek said.

Answering a question raised by Tom Cheshire, Sky News, Embarek added:

“We also looked, for example, at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, P4 level laboratory and the states of that laboratory. And it was very unlikely that anything could escape from such a place.”

Instead, Embarek said further research and studies should be conducted in the three hypothesis they have also agreed, namely:

A direct jump from an animal to a human; introduction of the virus through an intermediary host; and, the food chain, particularly the cold-process product chain as the virus can persist and survive on conditions that are found in these frozen environments.