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Experts studying the origins of the coronavirus for the World Health Organization warned Wednesday that the investigation “has stalled” and further delays could make it impossible to find key evidence of the onset of the pandemic.
“The window on the biological feasibility of conducting critical backtracking of humans and animals inside and outside of China is closing fast,” the experts said. Article in the journal Nature. They said several studies on blood samples and wildlife farms in China are urgently needed to understand how Covid-19 originated.
In the midst of a vengeful debate about whether a lab incident could trigger a pandemic, the editorial was a defense of the team’s work and a call for follow-up work. A separate report on the origins of the pandemic has been published by American intelligence agencies. Delivered to President Biden on Tuesday, but did not provide a new answer on whether the virus emerged from a laboratory or by natural spread from animals to humans.
NS international expert teamIt has faced criticism for publishing a report sent to Wuhan, China in January as part of a joint investigation by the World Health Organization and China, which said in March that while it was possible for the coronavirus to leak from a laboratory, it was “extremely unlikely”. ”
Immediately after the report’s publication, the WHO director-general did not adequately assess the possibility a lab leak.
Virologists turned to the following theory: infected animals transmitted the virus to humans. In an editorial published Wednesday, the team of experts reiterated their call for blood of workers at wildlife farms supplying animals to Wuhan markets to be tested for antibodies that indicate past coronavirus infections. The team also recommended screening for more livestock or livestock that may be infected. (The editorial also notes, somewhat gloomily, that many Chinese wildlife farms have been closed and their animals killed since the pandemic emerged, making it difficult to find evidence of early spread from animals to humans.)
The team pointed to a recent report showing this. Markets in Wuhan sold live animals He argued that the weight of evidence behind a natural spread of the virus, including palm civets and raccoon dogs, was greater than that of a lab leak two years before the pandemic began.
Marion Koopmans, a Dutch virologist and co-author of the editorial, described it as a “cry of urgency” in an interview.
“We were a little concerned that there was almost no discussion about the bulk of the proposals that weren’t related to the lab hypothesis, and of course there’s a lot of discussion about the lab story, especially from the US,” he said. said. “Our concern is that the rest don’t get more attention because of this emphasis.”
Dr. Koopmans said that to identify the first cases of the virus, scientists should also examine blood samples from late 2019 before they are discarded. He said that during the expert team’s visit to Wuhan, he had received assurances that blood banks there would keep samples beyond the normal two-year period, but still did not have access to them.
The Chinese government has stopped cooperating with investigations by the WHO, making it difficult to assess any theory of the origin of the virus.
Wednesday’s editorial also raised concerns about delays at WHO. The organization said this month it will set up an advisory group to study the emergence of new pathogens and support the group’s coronavirus investigations. The editorial warned that this new layer of bureaucracy “risks adding several months of delay.”
The organization said in a statement that “the establishment of the advisory group will not delay the progress of the origins of the virus studies” and is currently working to validate studies on the earliest known cases outside of China.
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