The director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO) said in an interview with the Financial Times that he was ready to send a new mission of experts to China to discover the origins of Covid-19, asking for “full access”.
“We are putting pressure on China to grant full access and we are asking countries to raise the issue at their bilateral meetings (to encourage Beijing to cooperate),” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the Financial Times.
“The WHO has already written to China asking for information and we are ready to send a team if they give us permission,” he explained.
To date, the international community has not been able to determine the origin of Covid with certainty.
Although the first cases were initially discovered in Wuhan, China, in late 2019, there are two opposing theories: an escape from a laboratory in the city where these viruses were being researched, or an intermediate animal that infected people visiting a hospital. local market.
A team of experts led by WHO and accompanied by Chinese colleagues conducted studies in China in early 2021.
In a joint report, they favored the hypothesis that the highly contagious virus was transmitted to humans by an animal that acted as an intermediary between the bat and humans, possibly in a market in the Chinese city.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus later stated that “all hypotheses remain on the table”.
No team was able to return to China and WHO officials repeatedly requested additional data.
The WHO Director-General has said on several occasions that WHO has no intention of abandoning research and has repeatedly called on Beijing to “be transparent in sharing data, conducting necessary studies and sharing results” .
Thanks to vaccines, immunity acquired after infection and better treatments, the virus is now much better under control, although with the arrival of autumn, infections are rising again in the Northern Hemisphere and new variants have emerged.
Source: DN
