Moneycontrol
HomeNewsHealth & FitnessCOVID-19 update | Delayed report says coronavirus probably came to humans from animals
Trending Topics

COVID-19 update | Delayed report says coronavirus probably came to humans from animals

Drafted by a team of World Health Organization-appointed international experts and Chinese counterparts, the report has been keenly anticipated ever since investigators left China more than a month ago.

March 29, 2021 / 21:06 IST
Story continues below Advertisement
Soldiers wearing protective face masks march past the closed entrance gates to the Forbidden City, usually crowded with tourists before the coronavirus outbreak in Beijing, March 12, 2020. (Image: AP)

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

The intermediate host hypothesis was deemed "likely to very likely", while the theory that the virus escaped from a lab was seen as "extremely unlikely", according to a copy of the long-awaited final report obtained by AFP before its official release.

Story continues below Advertisement

Drafted by a team of World Health Organization-appointed international experts and Chinese counterparts, the report has been keenly anticipated ever since investigators left China more than a month ago.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says all Covid origins hypotheses 'need further study'

COVID-19 Vaccine
Frequently Asked Questions

View more

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.
View more
+ Show