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According to statements by the director of the FBI in the United States, the Sars-CoV-2 virus which caused the Covid-19 pandemic “probably escaped” from a virology laboratory in Wuhan, China. The World Health Organization calls for the sharing of information on the issue.
Masks, social distancing, confinements… The Covid-19 pandemic will mark the spirits for a long time. But can we know how it started? The director of the FBI, the federal bureau of investigations, advances a hypothesis which he considers “very probable”.
A virus escaped from a Chinese laboratory?
Christopher Wray, director of the FBI, spoke on February 28 about the pandemic and the coronavirus. For him, the Covid-19 epidemic was “very likely” of human origin: “the FBI has believed for some time now that the origin of the pandemic is most likely [liée à] a lab incident in Wuhan“report our colleagues from Fox News.
A hypothesis that does not seem to be ruled out by the World Health Organization either, which believes that the virus could have emerged in the Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China.
China defends itself against these accusations
Through the voice of its Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Chinese government believes that it “should stop agitating this theory of a laboratory leak, stop smearing China and stop politicizing the search for the origins of the virus”.
For the head of the FBI, on the other hand, things are clear: “I will just make the observation that the Chinese government, it seems to me, has done its best to try to thwart and obscure the work here, the work that we are doing, the work that our American government and our close foreign partners are doing. And that’s unfortunate for everyone.”
WHO calls for cooperation between countries
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus calls for international cooperation on the issue, during his regular press conference. “If a country has information on the origins of the pandemic, it is essential that this information is shared with the WHO and the international scientific community.“. He reminds that it is not about “name the culprits” but of “advance our understanding of how this pandemic began, so that we can prevent, prepare for, and respond to future epidemics and pandemics.”.
“No new elements for such assertions”
In the columns of Parisianvirologist Bruno Lina, member of Covars (Committee for monitoring and anticipating health risks) believes that this hypothesis “has no scientific basis and, to date, we have no new elements that would allow this case to be reopened“. According to him, the origin of the virus remains a mystery and the most probable hypothesis remains an animal origin, more likely via the bat.
Will we know the truth one day? Case to follow.