The World Health Organization said Wednesday that it remains convinced that China would participate in the investigation, only days after Beijing rejected calls for a new investigation into the origins of Covid-19.
Since it first erupted in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019, pressure has mounted on Beijing to launch a new investigation into the origins of a pandemic that has killed more than four million people and paralyzed economies around the world.
WHO emergency director Mike Ryan told reporters, “I’m confident… that our colleagues in China are very much willing to cooperate on the scientific research that are needed to further study the origins.”
His remark came after Beijing dismissed a request from the UN health agency for raw data from the initial Covid-19 cases to aid the investigation of the origin as politicized last Friday.
The WHO, and specifically Ryan, has called for a depoliticization of the study of the origin, which is considered as critical to preventing future pandemics.
“I believe what has happened is that politics has poisoned the surroundings and affected the atmosphere,” he stated on Wednesday.
“We’re working extremely hard behind the scenes to boost confidence and recommit individuals to the scientific process,” he explained.
“I believe we’re making progress there,” he said, admitting that the task was “not easy given some of the hyperbole that we’ve all heard over the previous few weeks and months.”
The pandemic’s first phase was delayed due to the rhetoric and finger-pointing, with the WHO only being able to deploy a team of international experts to Wuhan in January 2021, more than a year after the outbreak.
The team’s study, co-written with their Chinese colleagues, did not reach any strong findings, instead of ranking four hypotheses.
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It stated the most plausible scenario was for the virus to transfer from bats to humans via an intermediate species, and that a leak from the Wuhan virology facilities was “very unlikely.”
However, the probe was criticized for a lack of transparency and access, as well as for not adequately assessing the lab-leak allegation, prompting the US to increase its pressure ever since.
Faced with China’s reluctance to cooperate with outside investigators, scientists are now examining the hypothesis that the virus may have spilled from a lab, which was previously regarded as a conspiracy promoted by the US extreme right.
Even WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has indicated that the original inquiry into Wuhan’s virology facilities was insufficient, and President Joe Biden authorized a secondary investigation into the virus’s origins from the US intelligence community in May.
Beijing was enraged by a WHO request this month for the investigation’s second stage to include audits of the Wuhan labs, which vice health minister Zeng Yixin described as “disrespect for common sense and arrogance toward science.”
