WHO still waiting on COVID origins data from China

An appeal from the World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday indicated that the UN health agency was still waiting on Beijing to give them data needed to clarify the earliest stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We continue to call on China to share data and access so we can understand the origins of COVID-19," the WHO said in a statement.

"This is a moral and scientific imperative. Without transparency, sharing, and cooperation among countries, the world cannot adequately prevent and prepare for future epidemics and pandemics."

China says it held nothing back

China's Foreign Ministry responded early on Tuesday, saying it had shared information internationally "without holding anything back," thereby making a "huge contribution" to efforts to fight the pandemic. 

"Five years ago ... China immediately shared epidemic information and viral gene sequence with the WHO and international community," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said. 

"Without holding anything back, we shared our prevention, control and treatment experience, making a huge contribution to the international community's pandemic-fighting work," she told reporters at a regular press briefing.

Wuhan lab raises questions about virus origins

Scientists around the world agree thatCOVID-19, originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019. For the first several months of the pandemic, the generally accepted hypothesis was that the virus started spreading among humans after first infecting animals, most likely bats. The "wet market" in Wuhan, where shoppers can purchase live animals, was considered the most likely origin point.

However, some online users speculated that the virus leaked from a coronavirus research lab in Wuhan or was even released as a bioweapon. US President Donald Trump soon bolstered the "lab leak" theory by saying he had seen evidence of a lab leak, and senior members of his administration repeated that claim.

China has dismissed the narrative as "groundless."

The WHO eventually sent a team to Wuhan​​​​​​ that visited both the wet market and the lab — under tight security and close supervision by Chinese officials — but the visit failed to produce a clear answer. In March 2021, the WHO and Chinese experts published a study deeming lab leak to be "extremely unlikely" and declaring that the SARS-CoV-2 most probably originated in animals, while also saying that "no firm conclusion" was reached about the role of the wet market. Just several months later, however, the WHO asked China to audit Chinese biotech labs.

Beijing responded with anger, rejecting the request and decrying it as showing "disrespect for common sense and arrogance towards science."

Most scientists still reject lab leak idea

Meanwhile, the Biden administration ordered an intelligence probe into the lab leak theory.

The report said both animal-to-human transmission and a laboratory incident were "plausible hypotheses." However, the intelligence agencies "remained divided" on the most likely origin of COVID-19.

 

Commenting on the report in August 2021, President Joe Biden said Beijing "continues to reject calls for transparency and withhold information."

"Critical information about the origins of this pandemic exists in the People's Republic of China, yet from the beginning, government officials in China have worked to prevent international investigators and members of the global public health community from accessing it," according to Biden.

Despite multiple reports from the US intelligence community and various scientific studies in the following years, the definitive answer remains out of reach. An expert survey published in February 2024 found that most scientists believe COVID emerged from nature, but a significant minority — one in five — thinks the "research-related accident" is the most likely cause.

dj/lo (AFP, dpa)