In a report released on Thursday, the WHO stated that all available data indicated that the new coronavirus that caused Covid-19 originated in animals, most likely bats, a similar result to the UN agency’s earlier work on the subject in 2021, which followed a trip to China.
The UN’s top health agency stated that its director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, wrote to China’s government twice in February this year to request further information, and that China had responded with some data.
Scientists reported that it’s critical to figure out exactly what happened in 2019 in order to prevent future breakouts. However, in the last two years, political conflict between China and a number of western countries has obstructed inquiries into the pandemic’s origins they said.
“The longer it takes, the harder it becomes,” Maria Van Kerkhove, a senior WHO official, said on Thursday, adding her agency would support all ongoing efforts to better understand how the pandemic began.
“We owe it to ourselves, we owe to the millions of people who died and the billions of people who were infected,” Van Kerkhove said.
In a press conference conducted today, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian stated that China’s position on the research of the origins of SARS-CoV-2 is consistent and clear.
” We always support and participate in science-based global origins-tracing. At the same time, we firmly oppose all forms of political manipulation. Since COVID-19 broke out, the Chinese side has twice received WHO experts for origins-tracing cooperation, which produced a scientific and authoritative joint report and laid a solid foundation for global origins-tracing. After the WHO established the Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins on Novel Pathogens (SAGO), China recommended experts to join the group and organized events for Chinese experts to share research findings with the WHO Secretariat and SAGO” Zhao said in his press statement.
Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian stressed the following points.
First, origins study must be conducted on the basis of science and free from political interference. The lab leak theory is a false claim concocted by anti-China forces for political purposes. It has nothing to do with science. The Chinese side has invited WHO experts to visit the Wuhan lab, and the joint report reached the clear conclusion that “a laboratory origin of the pandemic was considered to be extremely unlikely”. Since the SAGO report has called for investigation into biological laboratories “located worldwide where early COVID-19 cases have been retrospectively detected” for the next phase of study, investigation should first target highly suspicious laboratories such as those at Fort Detrick and the University of North Carolina in the US.
Second, more and more clues from the international science community are pointing the origins of SARS-CoV-2 to sources around the world. The WHO and SAGO should take a close look at these clues, effectively cooperate with these relevant countries, and share research findings with all parties in a timely way.
Third, according to its mandate, SAGO should focus more on emerging pathogens with epidemic and pandemic potential in the future while conducting SARS-CoV-2 origins study. The recent outbreaks of hepatitis of unknown cause in children and monkeypox reported in the US, the UK, Canada and elsewhere have drawn much attention worldwide. The WHO and SAGO must take prompt action accordingly.
