WHO accuses US of deliberately complicating coronavirus research

The reason was the US statements about leaks from Chinese laboratories

The WHO is urging the US to share information about the origin of Covid-19 following claims of a virus leak allegedly occurring in a Chinese lab. The director-general of the World Health Organization says the politicization of research into the origins of COVID has made scientific work more difficult.

The World Health Organization has urged all countries to disclose what they know about the origin of Covid-19 after claims by several US government agencies that a leak from a Chinese laboratory was the cause of the disease were vehemently denied by Beijing.

“If any country has information about the origin of a pandemic, it is important that this information be shared with the WHO and the international scientific community,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Friday.

FBI Director Christopher Wray told Fox News on Tuesday that his agency has now assessed the source of the Covid-19 pandemic as “most likely a potential laboratory incident in Wuhan.”

As recalled by Agence France-Presse, the first cases of coronavirus infection were recorded at the end of 2019 in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the virus research laboratory is located. Chinese officials denied the FBI director’s statement, calling it part of a smear campaign against Beijing.

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros stressed that the WHO did not want to shift the blame, but wanted to “deepen our understanding of how this pandemic began so that we can prevent, prepare for and respond to future epidemics and pandemic-like events.”

He said that the politicization of origins research makes scientific work more difficult and, as a result, makes the world less safe.

In 2021, the UN health agency set up the Scientific Advisory Panel on the Origin of New Pathogens (Sago) to study the causes of the pandemic.

“The WHO continues to urge China to be transparent in sharing data and to carry out the necessary investigations and share results,” Dr. Tedros said, adding that he has repeatedly written off and spoken to top Chinese leaders. “Until then, all hypotheses about the origin of the virus remain on the table.”

FBI Director Ray’s comments come after a report released earlier this week that said the US Department of Energy had determined that a leak from a Chinese lab was the most likely cause of the Covid-19 outbreak. However, this estimate was made with “low confidence”. Other agencies in the US intelligence community believe the coronavirus is a natural occurrence.

Maria Van Kerkhove, who’s technical lead for Covid-19, said the organization has reached out to the US office in Geneva for more information.

However, until now they have not had access to the data on which the US reports were based, Van Kerkhove said.

“It remains vital that this information be shared,” she added, to help move scientific research forward.

Dr Tedros said there is a moral imperative to find out how the pandemic started, for the sake of the millions of people who have lost their lives due to Covid-19 and those living with prolonged covid.

The WHO has registered more than 6.8 million Covid-19 deaths and more than 758 million confirmed cases. The organization acknowledges that the real losses are much higher.