WHO Thinks it Knows Where COVID-19 Originated
The World Health Organization will release a report in the coming weeks.
By Yasemin Saplakoglu | Live Science Staff Writer

March 17, 2021 | After a months-long investigation, the World Health Organization (WHO) has found that wildlife farms in China are likely the source of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Yunnan province in China. (Image credit: Shutterstock)

These wildlife farms, many of them in or around the southern Chinese province of Yunnan, were likely supplying animals to vendors at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, where early cases of COVID-19 were discovered last year, Peter Daszak, a disease ecologist on the WHO team that traveled to China, told NPR. Some of these wild animals could have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 from bats in the area.

The WHO is expected to release its findings in a report in the coming weeks.