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Coronavirus lab leak theory remains viable, should be investigated further, says a group of scientists

Coronavirus lab leak theory remains viable, should be investigated further, says a group of scientists
The lab leak theory often points to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Earlier, a team of experts from the WHO had concluded that it's "extremely unlikely" that coronavirus leaked from a Wuhan lab. But an international group of scientists isn't convinced by the WHO results.

Written by Longjam Dineshwori |Updated : May 15, 2021 10:39 AM IST

It's the second year of the Covid-19 pandemic, but coronavirus' origin still remains a mystery. Experts around the world have suggested several theories about the actual origin of the novel coronavirus. A controversial theory claim that the coronavirus was man-made came from a lab in Wuhan, China. However, after a month-long investigation in Wuhan, a WHO expert team concluded that it's "extremely unlikely" the virus leaked from a Wuhan lab. They investigators said that the virus most likely jumped from bats to people via an intermediary animal host, perhaps at a wildlife farm in China. But an international group of scientists isn't convinced by the WHO's findings. They say that the possibility that the virus leaked from a Chinese lab remains a 'viable' theory.

A group of 18 scientists from the US, UK, Canada, and Switzerland wrote in a letter published in the journal Science on Friday that both the theories of accidental release from a lab and zoonotic spillover "were not given balanced consideration" during the WHO investigation. Only four of the 313 pages in the WHO's report discuss possible evidence of a laboratory accident, they pointed out, suggesting that the WHO experts weren't working with complete information.

David Relman, an immunologist from Stanford University School of Medicine and one of the letter's co-authors, told Business Insider that he thinks the leak hypothesis "has been hastily dismissed, and in particular by WHO, without careful assessment."

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The lab leak hypothesiscan't be fully ruled out

WHO's director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, had also in March acknowledged that their expert group had difficulties accessing COVID-19 infection data and patient blood samples from in and around Wuhan, and the assessment wasn't extensive enough. For that reason, Tedros said that the lab-leak idea can't be fully ruled out and further investigation is necessary.

Peter Ben Embarek, a WHO scientist specializing in animal disease, also said in a March press conference that the possibility of a lab leak "did not receive the same depth of attention and work" as other hypotheses.

The international group of scientists suggested in the letter in Science that public-health agencies and research laboratories in China should make their records publicly accessible for a proper investigation on coronavirus' origin.