Virus-origin report met with skepticism

GENEVA — A joint study from the World Health Organization and China on the origins of covid-19 says that transmission of the disease from bats to humans through another animal is the most likely scenario and that a lab leak is “extremely unlikely,” according to a draft copy obtained by The Associated Press.

The findings offer little new insight into how the coronavirus first emerged and leave many questions unanswered. But the report does provide more detail on the reasoning behind the researchers’ conclusions.

The team proposed further research in every area except the lab-leak hypothesis — a speculative theory that was promoted by former

President Donald Trump, among others. It also said the role played by a seafood market where human cases were first identified was uncertain.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, said he would like to see the report’s raw information before deciding about its credibility.

“I’d also would like to inquire as to the extent in which the people who were on that group had access directly to the data that they would need to make a determination,” Fauci said. “I want to read the report first and then get a feel for what they really had access to — or did not have access to.”

The release of the report, which is expected today, is being closely watched because discovering the origins of the virus could help scientists prevent future pandemics — but it’s also a sensitive issue because China bristles at any suggestion that it is to blame for the current one.

Matthew Kavanagh of Georgetown University, who works at the intersection of global health, politics and law, said the report deepened the understanding of the virus’s origins but that more information was needed.

“It is clear that the Chinese government has not provided all the data needed and, until they do, firmer conclusions will be difficult,” he said in a statement.

Last year, an AP investigation found that the Chinese government was strictly controlling all research into the virus’s origins. And repeated delays in the report’s release have raised questions about whether the Chinese side was trying to skew its conclusions.

“We’ve got real concerns about the methodology and the process that went into that report, including the fact that the government in Beijing apparently helped to write it,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a recent CNN interview.

“I don’t think the global community can have confidence in this report because of China’s lack of transparency on necessary data sources, as well as the close relationship the team had to have with China,” said Larry Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown.

“This was an expert panel who worked diligently but were blocked from finding all that it could,” he said. “As a result, we may never know the origins of the pandemic.”

China rejected that criticism Monday.

“The U.S. has been speaking out on the report. By doing this, isn’t the U.S. trying to exert political pressure on the members of the WHO expert group?” asked Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian.

When a novel coronavirus hit Wuhan, China, in late 2019, Chinese officials downplayed the risk, undercounted cases and silenced whistleblowers. Then, through the early weeks of the crisis, the WHO amplified part of the official Chinese line, giving a false sense of reassurance and eroding public trust.

Suspicion of China has helped fuel the theory that the virus escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The report cited several reasons for all but dismissing that possibility.

It said such laboratory accidents are rare, that the labs in Wuhan were well-managed and that there is no record of viruses closely related to the coronavirus in any laboratory before December 2019.

The report is based largely on a visit by a WHO team of international experts to Wuhan. The mission was never meant to identify the exact natural source of the virus, an endeavor that typically takes years. For instance, more than 40 years of study has still failed to pinpoint the exact species of bat that is the natural reservoir of Ebola.

SCENARIOS EXAMINED

In the draft obtained by the AP, the researchers listed several scenarios in order of likelihood for the emergence of the coronavirus.

Topping the list was transmission from bats through another animal, which they said was likely to very likely. They evaluated direct spread from bats to humans as likely, and they said that spread to humans from the packaging of “cold-chain” food products was possible but not likely.

That last possibility was previously dismissed by the WHO and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but researchers on this mission have taken it up again, further raising questions about the politicization of the study given that China has long pushed the theory.

While it’s possible that an infected animal contaminated packaging that was then taken to Wuhan and infected humans, the report said, the probability is very low.

Mark Woolhouse, an epidemiologist at the University of Edinburgh, said even that “very low probability” was an overstatement. “There’s no compelling evidence of people actually being infected through packaging,” he said, calling the theory “far-fetched.”

Woolhouse agreed that it was possible the source of covid-19 might never be identified.

“The emergence of a new [disease] is always a sequence of unlikely events,” he said. “It’s hard to be definitive and rule anything out.” But he said most scientists agree that bats are the most likely source.

Bats are known to carry coronaviruses, and the closest relative of the virus that causes covid-19 has been found in bats.

The report said highly similar viruses have been found in pangolins, a scaly anteater prized in traditional Chinese medicine, but scientists have yet to identify the same coronavirus that has been infecting humans. The report recommends additional studies on livestock and farmed wildlife, such as cats and mink.

The AP received the draft copy Monday from a Geneva-based diplomat from a WHO-member country. It wasn’t clear whether the report might still be changed before its release, though the diplomat said it was the final version. A second diplomat confirmed getting the report, too. Both refused to be identified because they were not authorized to release it ahead of publication. The Washington Post also obtained a copy.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus acknowledged he had received the report over the weekend and said it would be presented today.

“All hypotheses are on the table and warrant complete and further studies,” he said at a news conference.

The report is inconclusive on whether the outbreak started at the Wuhan seafood market that had one of the earliest clusters of human cases in December 2019. Research published last year in the journal Lancet suggested the market may have merely served to further spread the disease rather than being its source.

The market was an early suspect because some stalls sold a variety of unusual animals — and some people wondered whether those animals had carried the new virus to Wuhan. The report noted that animal products — such as bamboo rats and deer, often frozen — were sold at the market, as were live crocodiles.

CHINA’S WORK

Questions about Chinese interference will be hard to shake. The terms of reference set out by WHO member states called for a collaboration between Chinese and foreign scientists, not an independent investigation or audit. Much of the data was collected by Chinese scientists ahead of the visit and then analyzed by the joint team.

Foreign scientists on the trip generally agree that the timing and level of access were suboptimal, but they stressed that they were able to obtain information the world did not have before.

Even though the Wuhan market had been shut for a year and its contents removed, for instance, seeing the proximity of the stalls and the layout helped, said WHO team member Hung Nguyen-Viet, a Vietnamese expert on livestock and human health.

In interviews, Hung and another expert on the trip, Keith Hamilton of the World Organization for Animal Health, said research on the market pointed to the need for additional investigation in southern China. It is unclear if China will allow foreign scientists to return.

Dominic Dwyer, an Australian microbiologist and infectious-disease expert on the mission, stressed that the team did not have the mandate, personnel or time to conduct a formal audit on labs.

“You could do, if so desired, a more detailed forensic examination,” he said. “But that is another whole negotiation and discussion.”

“What stands out starkly is that this is the kind of situation where member states are expecting results from WHO that they have not empowered it to produce,” said Mara Pillinger, a senior associate in global health policy and governance at Georgetown’s O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law. “They needed permission to go in, to conduct research, and on the report.”

In general, the foreign scientists on the trip praised their Chinese counterparts, noting their technical expertise and professionalism. They also acknowledged the limits of working with data collected before they arrived, which may not be complete.

“At the end of the day,” said Hung, “they show us what they show.”

Information for this article was contributed by Jamey Keaten, Ken Moritsugu, Maria Cheng, Victoria Milko, Zeke Miller and Frank Jordans of The Associated Press; and by Emily Rauhala and Adam Taylor of The Washington Post.