The WHO called the most likely version of the origin of COVID-19

WHO Chief Scientist announced his intention to organize a mission to CHINA to determine the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, but only if the Chinese authorities are ready to share all the information

it is more likely that covid-19 is of natural origin than that it was created in a laboratory, World HEALTH Organization (WHO) Chief Scientist Jeremy Farrar said in an interview with The Financial Times.

“It is becoming more and more clear that in fact the natural origin [of the coronavirus] is much more likely,” he said, citing data collected over three years.

However, Farrar noted that he is still considering all hypotheses about the origin of COVID-19, including the leakage of biomaterial from the Institute of Virology in Wuhan, where the pandemic began, or the transmission of infection through animal MEAT from urban markets .

The WHO expert noted that he supports the idea of ​​organizing a new mission to China to determine the origin of the CORONAVIRUS, but only if Beijing is really ready to share all the information.

“All information must be publicly available. And we have to get to the bottom of it,” he said, but still doubted that the WHO would be able to complete the mission to China.

After the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the WHO launched an investigation into the origin of the infection. In February 2021, the organization announced China's refusal to provide the necessary baseline data on 174 cases that were identified in Wuhan in December 2019.

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In July of the same year, Beijing refused to help the WHO investigate the version of a laboratory leak and accused the organization of political posturing. The HEAD of WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, did not rule out that the virus could have appeared artificially in a Chinese laboratory. The organization suspended further research due to opposition from China.

The U.S. Department of Energy , the U.S. government's national laboratory, and the FBI have called plausible the theory that the coronavirus spread from a leak from a Chinese laboratory. However, US national intelligence found no evidence of a possible incident at the Wuhan lab.

White House spokesman John Kirby said there was no consensus in the US government on exactly how covid began .

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning urged to stop discrediting Beijing and politicizing the issue of the origin of the coronavirus, stating a possible leak of COVID-19 from a Chinese laboratory. According to the diplomat, a joint scientific group of WHO and China came to the conclusion that such an origin of the coronavirus is unlikely.