Cold-chain products, like Australian beef, may have caused Covid-19 initial outbreak: WHO

A team of World Health Organization’s investigators had paid a visit to Wuhan to investigate the origins of the coronavirus.

However, WHO had rebutted the theory of coronavirus originating from Wuhan, China, on Tuesday, stating that the Wuhan lab leak theory of the virus was “extremely unlikely,” as per previous reports.

Now, in a shocking revelation, WHO has stated that “cold-chain products” such as Australian beef, may have been the reason behind the initial outbreak, Daily Mail reported.

Peter Embarek, the leader of the WHO team, also maintained that investigation should be carried out to find if the virus was imported into the country.

Also read: Covid-19 Wuhan lab leak theory ‘extremely unlikely’: WHO

This is in line with Chinese government claims that had said in October that SARS-CoV-2 broke out in various parts of the world in 2019. However, China was the only country that reported and acted on it first.

Disgruntled by the WHO’s report, Australia’s Health Minister Greg Hunt said it was “not surprising that there are no surprises” there.

“The overwhelming likelihood is that you have an animal-based source and that the virus is likely to arise somewhere in the vicinity of the first human cases,” Hunt said, as quoted in the News18 report.

Australian Senator Matt Canavan, too, criticised WHO’s findings and speculations and said: “Through this whole process, China’s acted like it had something to hide and it has frustrated the inquiry, dragged it out.”

“We needed this inquiry to start pretty much straight away if there was any hope of finding conclusions and it hasn’t,” Canavan was quoted as saying by news.com.au.