“I want to confirm that all hypotheses remain open and require more analysis and study,” said Bhebreyesus, at a press conference in Geneva, thus denying the message that had been sent by the experts, at a press conference in Wuhan, where they had discarded the hypothesis that the virus originated in a laboratory.
This hypothesis had been repeated several times by former US President Donald Trump, who assigned responsibilities to the Beijing Government for its inability to stop the covid-19 pandemic in its early stages and asked WHO for full clarification on the source of the virus. .
Today, Ghebreyesus said that the recent mission of experts in China “has not found all the answers, but has provided important information” that “approach knowledge of the origin of the virus”.
The WHO director explained that the mission – made up of experts from 10 countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and Russia – will release a preliminary report of its visit next week, which will be expanded in the coming weeks and explained in a new press conference given by the team of experts.
Ghebreyesus said that the mission – which also had experts from the World Food Organization (FAO) and the Organization for Animal Health (OIE, acronym in English) – took place “in very difficult circumstances”, so thanked its members for their commitment.
Also present at today’s press conference was Peter Embarek, who led the team of scientists and said that the mission “has achieved many successes”.
“We now have a better understanding of what happened in 2019,” said Embarek, noting that this initiative was just “the beginning” of the investigation process on the origin of the new coronavirus.
The covid-19 pandemic caused at least 2,368,493 deaths worldwide, resulting from more than 107.7 million cases of infection, according to a report made by the French agency AFP.
The disease is transmitted by a new coronavirus detected in late December 2019 in Wuhan, a city in central China.
Transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus: why keep two meters away?
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