Step up hunt for origins of Covid-19, Lancet panel urges
- The coronavirus may have been natural or engineered but more investigation needed, commission says
- Global monitoring of virus gain-of-function studies also lacking
In its final report this week, the Lancet Commission on Covid-19 led by Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs said the virus could well have had a natural origin, but the commission could not rule out it could have passed to humans during laboratory research in Wuhan, the Chinese city where the virus was first detected, or elsewhere.
“The [World Health Organization], governments, and the scientific community should intensify the search for the origins of Sars-CoV-2, investigating both a possible zoonotic origin and a possible research-associated origin,” it said.
“Because beta coronaviruses related to Sars-CoV-2 are found across East Asia, the search for a natural source of Sars-CoV-2 should continue with high focus and intensity, as the eventual discovery of a natural reservoir of the virus might occur only after years of searching, and quite possibly outside of China.”
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Nature or lab leak? Why tracing the origin of Covid-19 matters
The commission was convened by the medical journal the Lancet and took two years to compile input from more than 170 scientists and researchers. Its final report was released on Wednesday after a series of preliminary reports.