OREANDA-NEWS. The most likely scenario for the origin of COVID-19 is the transmission of the virus from bats to humans through another animal, and its leak from the laboratory, on the contrary, is "extremely unlikely." This point of view was expressed by the Associated Press agency with reference to the draft of the final joint study of the specialists of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the PRC that came to its disposal.

Earlier on March 26, the head of the WHO expert group, Peter Ben Embarek, said that the report on the visit to Chinese Wuhan to identify the origin of the coronavirus has been written in full, experts expect to release it in the coming days.

According to the Associated Press, researchers have listed four coronavirus scenarios in order of likelihood. They concluded that transmission of the virus through a second animal was highly likely. Direct transmission of the virus from bats to humans, they assessed as a likely scenario, and the spread of the virus through food is, according to experts, possible, but unlikely.

The closest relative of the virus that causes COVID-19 has been found in bats. However, as the draft report states, "the evolutionary distance between the viruses found in bats and SARS-CoV-2 is estimated to be several decades, indicating a missing link."

According to the agency, the results of the study "were largely as expected and left many questions unanswered." According to him, a team of experts proposed further research in all areas, except for the laboratory leak hypothesis.