Wildlife farms in southern China likely source of Covid pandemic, WHO expert says
India TodayAn expert at the World Health Organisation rejected the possibility that Covid-19 emerged in a lab and claimed that wildlife farms in China are likely the source of the novel coronavirus pandemic. Peter Daszak, a member of the WHO team that travelled to China to probe the origin of Covid-19, told an American news agency that the officials found new evidence suggesting that wildlife farms in southern China were supplying animals to vendors at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan -- where the early Covid-19 outbreak emerged. According to the report, Daszak said the Chinese government thought those wildlife farms "were the most probable pathway for a coronavirus in bats in southern China to reach humans in Wuhan". According to Daszak, China had shut down wildlife farms in February 2020, "likely because the Chinese government thought that they were part of the transmission pathway from bats to humans", Daszak said.