London: Concerns over the artificial origins of Covid-19 do not have any value, Russian virologist and expert at the World Health Organization Dmitry Lvov said.
Coronaviruses are primarily viruses associated with bats. Someone could have been infected either in a room where a bat spent the night or in a cave where bats usually live in large numbers,” he said.
Roughly 150 viruses have been transmitted to humans from animals during the domestication of wild animals, Lvov told a Russian television program last week, the Xinhua news agency reported.
A person could have eaten some meat from animals that have ecological ties with bats, thus becoming the first source of infections, he added.
Meanwhile, The number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in Africa reached 4,854,455 as of Wednesday noon, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said.
The Africa CDC, the specialised healthcare agency of the African Union, said the death toll from the pandemic stood at 131,138 while 4,395,809 patients across the continent had recovered from the disease, the Xinhua news agency reported.
South Africa, Morocco, Tunisia, Ethiopia and Egypt are the countries with the most cases in the continent, according to the Africa CDC.
In terms of the caseload, southern Africa is the most affected region, followed by the northern and eastern parts of the continent, while central Africa is the least affected region in the continent, according to the Africa CDC.