China refused to facilitate a new WHO investigation on its territory to determine the origin of COVID-19

China on Friday rejected calls by the World Health Organization (WHO) to conduct new investigations on its territory into the origins of covid-19, claiming he supports a “scientific” rather than “political” approach to establishing how the virus started

Pressure has increased on China in recent hours over the pandemic, which has already claimed more than four million lives worldwide, and severely affected global economies.

Thusday, The WHO has urged all countries, and in particular China, to share information on the first cases of covid-19 and said it needs “all the data” to investigate the theory that the virus could escape from a Wuhan lab, Chinese city where the pandemic is said to originate.

‘Specifically, to meet the’laboratory hypothesis‘, it is important to have access to all the data and to consider the best scientific practices and to observe the mechanisms that the WHO has already put in place “the United Nations health agency said, adding that China had suggested that the organization was acting under political pressure to study the origins of the virus.

The WHO sent an international team of experts to Wuhan (central China) earlier this year, which, in a first phase of investigation, concluded that the virus had probably passed from bats to man by an intermediate animal.

But after reading the report, the Director-General of WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, assured that the investigations inside the Wuhan laboratories had not been thorough enough.

In a statement on the next phase of the study, The WHO said it was “of vital importance” to know how the pandemic started.

China responded on Friday, reiterating that the WHO Wuhan report was sufficient and rejected attempts to “politicize” the investigation.

“We oppose the politicization of the search for the origins of” the virus “and the abandonment of the joint China-WHO report” published after this visit by international experts in January to Wuhan, said the vice foreign minister. Ma Zhaoxu.

“We advocate research supported by science” added the vice-minister, for whom “the conclusions and recommendations of the joint WHO-China report have been recognized by the international and scientific community”.

The laboratory theory was promoted by former US President Donald Trump, but his successor Joe Biden also favored the continuation of this line of research.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, WHO has been working with Member States and the scientific community to better understand how this pandemic started so that we can be better prepared for the next one.

After the publication of joint report WHO-China phase one studies on the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in March 2021, the organization described the next round of studies to be carried out and continue discussions with Member States and experts on next steps.

Moving forward, WHO calls on all governments to depoliticize the situation and cooperate to speed up the original studies and, more importantly, that they work together to develop a common framework for future emerging pathogens with pandemic potential.

(With information from AFP)

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