The WHO has scrapped plans for a team that visited Wuhan, China, to probe the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic to issue an interim report, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported late on Thursday.
The WHO team returned from its visit there last month, saying it had no clear finding on the genesis of the virus, amid tensions between the US and China on what caused the once-in-a century global health crisis.
The US responded by saying it had “deep concerns” about what the team learned and it pressed Beijing for more information.
Photo: Reuters
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Feb. 12 said that a preliminary report with a summary of the team’s findings would be issued soon thereafter, and a full report in a matter of weeks.
However, now the plan is to scrap the interim report, the WSJ said, quoting Peter Ben Embarek, the scientist who led the team.
Instead, the team is to publish the full and final report, with a summary of its findings, the newspaper said, quoting a WHO spokesman.
This broader report “will be published in coming weeks and will include key findings,” it quoted the spokesman as saying.
“By definition a summary report does not have all the details,” Ben Embarek was quoted as saying. “So since there [is] so much interest in this report, a summary only would not satisfy the curiosity of the readers.”
US Department of State spokesman Ned Price on Thursday urged China to share what it knows from the earliest days of the pandemic.
“It is about learning and doing, being positioned to do everything we can to protect ourselves, the American people, and the international community against pandemic threats going forward,” Price told a briefing. “That’s why we need this understanding. That’s why we need this transparency from the Chinese government.”
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