WHO continues to call on China and all countries to immediately share any data on the origin of SARS-CoV-2
Posted Date – Fri, 4/07/23 at 11:59pm
New Delhi: The World Health Organization (WHO) has again lashed out at China, saying it should have shared samples of the virus from Wuhan, the epicenter of the pandemic, immediately, not three years later.
Earlier this month, the global health agency learned that Chinese scientists were in possession of virus samples collected from Wuhan in January 2020, Maria Van Kerkhove, the technical lead for the WHO response to Covid-19, wrote in the prestigious journal Science. data.
“These should be shared immediately, not 3 years later. The lack of data disclosure is inexcusable,” she said.
WHO continues to call on China and all countries to immediately share any data on the origin of SARS-CoV-2.
“China has advanced technological capabilities, so I believe there is much more data that hasn’t been shared — on the trade in wild and farmed animals; testing on humans and animals in Wuhan and across China; the operations of the labs in Wuhan that study the coronavirus; Earliest potential case; et cetera,” Van Kerkhove wrote.
She said the world needs to move away from blame politics and instead use all diplomacy and scientific methods so that the global scientific community can collaborate and find evidence-based solutions to stop future epidemics.
China officially declared the Covid-19 disease on December 31, 2019.
Last month, U.S. President Joe Biden signed a bill to declassify intelligence information about the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, which has so far claimed more than seven million lives worldwide.
Under the new legislation, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines has 90 days to declassify all information about a possible link between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origin of the new coronavirus.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology has been a major center for coronavirus research.
The U.S. Department of Energy concluded with “low confidence” in February that the Covid-19 virus escaped from a laboratory in China.
In 2021, the FBI also agreed with “moderate confidence” to the lab leak claim.
More than three years into the pandemic, the origins of Covid-19 remain unclear.
