Covid-19 probably passed to humans from a bat via an intermediary animal, an international expert mission to China concluded in a report seen by AFP Monday, while all but ruling out a laboratory leak.

But the report, drafted by World Health Organization-appointed international experts and their Chinese counterparts, offers no definitive answers on how the new coronavirus jumped to humans.

Covid-19 has killed more than 2.7 million people worldwide in the 15 months since it emerged, forcing governments around the world to introduce restrictions that have battered the global economy.

Ahead of a meeting with world leaders, UN chief Antonio Guterres called for more debt relief for the poorest countries struggling with the economic fallout from the pandemic.

In the United States, there was good news about progress of its vaccine roll-out, but President Joe Biden warned Americans that the battle was still far from over.

Mexico, meanwhile, released new figures on excess deaths which suggest its official coronavirus death toll — already the third highest in the world — is a massive underestimate.

– 'New Debt mechanism' –

The expert report on the origins of Covid has had a troubled birth, with publication delays adding to the hold-ups and diplomatic wrangling that plagued the WHO's attempts to get experts into Wuhan — the city at the centre of the initial outbreak.

They finally arrived on January 14, more than a year after the first cases surfaced.

Experts believe the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes the Covid-19 disease originally came from bats.

The report authors judged that the most likely scenario was that it had made a direct leap to humans, while not ruling out other theories.

Beijing's theory that the virus did not originate in China at all but was imported in frozen food was judged "possible" but very unlikely.

Claims promoted by former US president Donald Trump's administration that the virus escaped from a research lab were judged "extremely unlikely".

Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Guterres called for a "new debt mechanism" allowing such options as debt swaps, buy-backs and cancellations to help worse-off countries.

Addressing an online forum that included dozens of world leaders, he said the pandemic has pushed the world to "the verge of a debt crisis" and required "urgent action".

"We need to change the rules," he argued.

The pandemic had also "shattered the lives" of millions of women and girls and reversed progress towards gender equality, he said.

– 'War far from won' –

In the US, the White House said that 90 percent of adults would be eligible for Covid shots within three weeks.

But in a television address, Biden himself warned the country — which has the world's highest death toll — that "our work is far from over. The war against Covid-19 is far from won."

He condemned the reckless behaviour of some people flouting social distancing measures.

New government data from Mexico showed that it had registered 294,287 Covid-19 deaths — substantially more than previously recorded, and the third highest in the world behind Brazil and the United States.

In Britain on Monday, people rushed to pools and parks to enjoy new-found freedoms, as the government allowed small groups to gather and sports activities to resume.

"We haven't swum since January 5, so we were beyond excited to come back and get back into the water," swimmer Jessica Walker told AFP at a London pool.

The country is also lining up an FA Cup semi-final football match in April as a test run for reopening large events.

– J&J deals –

Johnson & Johnson announced of a deal with the African Vaccine Acquisition Trust (AVAT) to bring relief to that continent.

AVAT has an initial deal for 220 million doses of the single-shot vaccine with J&J subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceutica for delivery from the third quarter of this year.

With EU approval already in its pocket, the US drugmaker also plans to begin European deliveries on April 19.

The bloc has lagged far behind Britain in its vaccine rollout.

Rising case numbers in Germany led Chancellor Angela Merkel to lambast the heads of the country's regional states, including her own party colleagues, for failing to reintroduce restrictions.

In neighbouring France, President Emmanuel Macron may announce new measures this week after partial, regional shutdowns failed to keep the number of people in intensive care below its second-wave peak.

Also on Monday, the makers of the Russian-developed Sputnik V shot struck a deal with a Chinese firm to make more than 60 million doses, citing "rising demand" for the drug.

Which animals could have passed Covid-19 to humans?
Paris (AFP) March 29, 2021 –

First it was snakes, and then the endangered pangolin before Asian ferret badgers were put in the dock.

Scientists have been scrutinising a Noah's Ark of animals to find out whether — and how — the coronavirus was transmitted from bats to humans, with the prime suspect changing from one study to another.

Cats, dogs, badgers, lions and tigers have also been in the spotlight — not to mention minks, which have been culled in the millions.

After AFP published findings of a report by experts convened by World Health Organization (WHO) Monday, here is a recap of the suspects.

– Snakes –

Scientists were quick to accuse the bat of being the origin from the time the virus emerged in China in late 2019.

A study sponsored by the Chinese Academy of Sciences in January 2020 found that Covid-19 was closely related to a strain that exists in bats, which would be the "native host".

Bats are hosts for many other strains of coronavirus.

But the scientists say that Covid-19 must have passed through another yet-to-be-identified species known as an "intermediate host".

A second study published shortly after in the Journal of Medical Virology fingered snakes as the possible culprit.

The report was immediately brushed aside by other experts who said the guilty party was probably a mammal, as was the case with SARS, which came from the civet, a small nocturnal animal prized in China for its meat.

– The pangolin? –

Researchers at the South China Agricultural University said in February 2020 the endangered pangolin, a mammal whose scales are used in Chinese medicine, may be the "missing link" between bats and humans.

This anteater was one of the wild animals sold at the Huanan market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, to which most of the first known cases of Covid-19 were linked.

But whether the pangolin is the culprit is not known at this stage.

– Cats and dogs vulnerable –

A pet dog was quarantined in Hong Kong later that same month after it tested "weak positive" to the virus when its owner was infected.

Cases were then reported in cats.

Ferrets and hamsters have also tested positive, along with tigers and lions in captivity.

Scientists have stressed that domestic animals are vulnerable to the virus but cannot infect humans.

– Millions of minks culled –

Suspicion has also fallen on mink, which are bred for their valuable fur.

In June, the WHO said that Dutch workers apparently infected with the coronavirus by minks could be the first known cases of animal-to-human transmission.

Cases of Covid in mink farms were then detected in several other European Union countries including Denmark, France, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Spain and Sweden, as well as in the United States.

In July tens of thousands of minks were culled in the Netherlands and a month later hundreds of thousands more followed when the government brought forward a total ban on the industry to the end of the year.

Denmark — which had three times more mink than people — ordered all of the country's 15 to 17 million minks to be culled in November.

Copenhagen warned that the mutation via the mink, dubbed "Cluster 5", could threaten the effectiveness of any future vaccine.

– Missing link –

A mission of international WHO experts who visited Wuhan had no shortage of suspects, from rabbits to ferret badgers to raccoons and civets.

Their long-awaited report obtained by AFP Monday said it was "likely to very likely" that the virus jumped from bats to humans via an intermediate host, but they were not able to say what that missing link might be.

In fact it was also "possible to likely" that the virus jumped directly from bats, they added.