Coronavirus is still installed in the daily lives of millions of people around the planet and while trying to find a vaccine to counter it, many have wondered about the origin of this virus. In the United States, more specifically its President, Donald Trump, has stated that they have proof that COVID-19 was created in a laboratory in China. Now, the WHO (World Health Organization) has denied such claims and has specified that the virus "has animal origins".
"Coronavirus circulates ancestrally among bats, we know this based on the genetic sequence of this virus. What we need to understand is which animal acted as an intermediary, that is, was infected by the bats and transmitted it to humans," said Maria Van Kerkhove, head of WHO's emerging diseases and zoonosis unit.
The United States has accused China of creating the coronavirus
From the United States, Donald Trump first and then his Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, had declared that the virus was created in a laboratory in Wuhan - the city where the first massive outbreak took place. His secretary defended a few days ago that they have "an enormous amount of evidence" that prove his statements.
Van Kerkhove said, "From all the evidence we've seen of all the genetic sequences that are available, and I think there are over 15,000, this virus is of natural origin." Thus, if we give credibility to the WHO representative, the theory of Trump and his government team would automatically be diluted.
In addition, WHO Director, Mike Ryan, has made it clear that the United States has never offered any proof of its hypothesis: "From our perspective this is speculative and like any evidence-based organization, we would very much like to receive any information regarding the origin of the virus."
He concluded that until the United States shares this information, "we will concentrate on what we know, on the evidence that we have that tells us that the virus is of animal origin."
[This is a translation of the original article "La OMS aclara por fin el origen del coronavirus tras todas las teorías posibles" published in espanadiario.net]