The head of WHO evaluated the hypothesis about the leakage of coronavirus from the laboratory

The World HEALTH Organization (WHO) is considering all versions of the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 CORONAVIRUS, including a leak from the laboratory. This was stated by the CEO of the organization, Tedros Ghebreyesus, answering a relevant question during a briefing, Independent reports.

Ghebreyesus noted that the topic of a possible leak of the virus from a laboratory in Wuhan, CHINA, was raised at a meeting of the G7 leaders' summit, which was held on June 12 in the English city of Carbis Bay.

According to Ghebreyesus, the conclusions drawn after the first stage of investigations into the origin of the coronavirus are not final.

“There are four hypotheses, but they are not final. I believe that all four hypotheses should be discussed. And we have to go to the second stage to actually establish the origin [of the coronavirus],” he said.

The HEAD of WHO also noted that more than 174 million people worldwide fell ill with coronavirus infection, and 3.75 million died from the consequences of covid-19 . According to him, people should know where this virus originated so that a recurrence of the pandemic can be prevented in the future.

In winter, an international team of experts conducted an investigation in the city of Wuhan, where the spread of the coronavirus began. The team included 17 experts from China and 17 experts from other countries. At the end of March, WHO released a report on the results of this investigation.

The report presented four versions of the origin of the virus, and each of them received its own probability estimate. The most likely experts called the transmission of the virus to humans from bats through an intermediary animal. The version about the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 directly from bats was also considered possible. The version of transmission of the virus through frozen or chilled foods was considered unlikely, and the possibility of the virus leaking from a laboratory in Wuhan was considered "highly unlikely."

The version of the artificial origin of the coronavirus has been repeatedly raised by the previous US administration, in particular by former President Donald Trump . Discussion of this hypothesis intensified at the end of May after the publication of the Daily Mail. The newspaper referred to a study by British and Norwegian scientists Angus Dalglish and Birger Sørensen, who claimed to have found unique traces in the SARS-CoV-2 virus that refute the possibility of its natural origin.

In June, former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said there was ample evidence of laboratory origin of the coronavirus. “We know a lot. <...> We know that <...> [this lab] has had leaks in the past due to security flaws. We know that there were doctors who fell ill and were hospitalized in the fall of 2019. <...> We know that military activities were carried out in the same laboratory, ”Pompeo said.

Before that, the head of the US National Institutes of Health, Francis Collins, said that there was no direct evidence of a coronavirus leak from a laboratory in Wuhan. However, scientists still do not fully understand what exactly happened in the city where the COVID-19 pandemic began to spread.