WHO requests China to provide details regarding sources of COVID-19: Report

Beijing has been urged by the head of the World Health Organization (WHO)to provide more details regarding the origins of Covid-19. The director of the World Health Organization told the Financial Times that he was prepared to dispatch a fresh team of experts to China to look into COVID-19’s genesis.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the FT, “We’re pressing China to give full access, and we are asking countries to raise it during their bilateral meetings — (to urge Beijing) to co-operate. He said that the WHO had previously written asking “to give us information ” and for the organisation to send a team “if they allow us to do so”.

The WHO director’s remarks come as pharmaceutical firms and health organizations worldwide race to develop vaccinations to combat more recent coronavirus strains that are emerging.

According to Tedros’ account to the Financial Times, he went to Beijing in January 2020 to persuade Chinese President Xi Jinping to grant entry to the first COVID-19 expedition of WHO experts, led by Bruce Aylward, from the health organization.

The first instances were found around the end of 2019 in Wuhan, China, raising the possibility of one of two competing theories: According to one theory, the virus is zoonotic, meaning it originated in animals and then spread to people. According to a different version, it was unintentionally released from the city’s virology facility.

Many believe it began in a market for live animals before spreading to other parts of the world and killing up to 7 million people.

According to Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the WHO, there is no scientific agreement over the cause of COVID-19, and all possibilities are still “on the table” as reported by the Financial Times. He said, “Unless we get evidence beyond reasonable doubt, we cannot just say this or that,”  adding that “we will get the answer. It’s a matter of time.”

The WHO has already come under fire for being overly forgiving of China’s first lacklustre response to the worldwide pandemic. According to critics, China’s early response allowed transmission rates to skyrocket beyond its borders. Later, in early 2021, a team of professionals led by the WHO and joined by Chinese researchers looked into the origins of COVID-19. Their united report favoured the theory of zoonotic origins.

World leaders will discuss pandemic preparedness for the first time at high-level sessions held during the UN General Assembly in New York the following week.

The virus is now more under control because of vaccines, post-infection protection, and better medical care, while new varieties are surfacing as autumn approaches in the Northern Hemisphere.

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