WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Thursday pressed China to share its information about the origins of COVID-19, saying that until that happens, all hypotheses remained on the table, more than three years after the virus emerged.
“Without full access to the information that China has, you cannot say this or that,” Ghebreyesus said in response to a question about the origin of the virus.
“All hypotheses are on the table. That’s WHO’s position and that’s why we have been asking China to be cooperative on this,” he said.
Photo: REUTERS
“If they would do that, then we will know what happened or how it started,” he said.
The virus was first identified in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019, with many suspecting it spread in a live animal market before fanning out around the world and killing nearly 7 million people.
Data from the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic were briefly uploaded by Chinese scientists to an international database last month.
It included genetic sequences found in more than 1,000 environmental and animal samples taken in January 2020 at the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, the location of the first known COVID outbreak.
The data showed that DNA from multiple animal species — including raccoon dogs — was present in environmental samples that tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, suggesting that they were “the most likely conduits” of the disease, a team of international researchers said.
However, in a non-peer-reviewed study published by Nature journal this week, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention scientists have disputed the international team’s findings.
The samples provided no proof the animals were actually infected, they said.
They were also taken a month after human-to-human transmission first occurred at the market, so even if they were COVID-positive, the animals could have caught the virus from humans, they said.
The latest Chinese information offered some “clues” on origins, but no answers, WHO technical lead for COVID-19 Maria Van Kerkhove said.
The WHO is working with scientists to find out more about the earliest cases from 2019 such as the whereabouts of those infected, she said.
The WHO still does not know whether some of the research required had been undertaken in China, she said.
The WHO has also asked the US for original data that underpinned a recent study by the US Department of Energy that suggested a laboratory leak in China had likely caused the COVID-19 pandemic, she added.
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