xi's moments
Home | Newsmakers

Experts unconvinced by COVID-19 lab-leak theories: media

Xinhua | Updated: 2021-06-11 10:19

WASHINGTON -- Many scientists, including top US infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci, still believe that COVID-19 most likely occurred in nature and jumped from animals to humans, according to The Associated Press on Wednesday.

No new key scientific evidence that might make the lab-leak hypothesis more likely has been publicly identified by virus researchers, it added.

The World Health Organization said in March that COVID-19 introduction through a laboratory incident was considered to be an "extremely unlikely" pathway, refuting lab-leak theories.

"The great probability is still that this virus came from a wildlife reservoir," said Arinjay Banerjee, a virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization in Saskatchewan, Canada, according to the report.

Spillover events -- when viruses jump from animals to humans -- are common in nature, and have been seen in previous cases, he said.

Many scientists believe that it's unlikely the 90-day investigation by the intelligence community at the request of US President Joe Biden will yield definitive new answers, the report added.

Global Edition
BACK TO THE TOP
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.
License for publishing multimedia online 0108263

Registration Number: 130349