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Global health body World Health Organisation is considering reviving its probe to determine the origins of the COVID-19 virus. The Wall Street Journal reported that a team of newly designated 20 scientists will be named ‘Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens.’
The WHO sent a team to Wuhan to investigate the origins of the virus in January and concluded that the virus indeed originated from an animal. After collecting several samples of the virus, the team concluded that the virus could not have been a labarotory leak. The team also said that the virus was transmitted to humans from bats, but, via an animal. The team had also said that though the virus could have originated outside the Hunan seafood market, the market is susceptible to the virus.
The team comprises specialists in laboratory safety and biosecurity and experts in geneticists. They will determine, whether the virus indeed originated from a lab. This would be the global health body’s second attempt to trace the origins of the virus and in process, trace the initial instances of the outbreak after the first attempt was deemed ‘insufficient’ for further investigation.
The new scientific team will probe the Wuhan lab leak theory aspect as earlier, WHO Chief Tedros Ghebreyesus said the team will look into the lab leak theory and that China hasn’t yet shared raw data from the early days of the pandemic.
Last month, after a team of American experts, investigated the origins of the virus, the US intelligence community concluded that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, was "not developed" as a biological weapon, with President Joe Biden reiterating that China continues to reject calls for transparency and withhold information about the origins of the virus.
Critical information about the origins of this pandemic exists in 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," Biden said after acknowledging the receipt of the report.
Director of WHO emergency programme, Mike Ryan, on Sunday, said that the WHO-led scientific team that went into the Wuhan Institute of Virology could not “compel China to divulge more data into the origins of COVID-19.”
The coronavirus pandemic has killed 4.7 million people worldwide so far. The likelihood that blood collected from early victims of the coronavirus will become unusable sparked urgency around the investigation. WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus said that as far as the origin probe was concerned “all hypotheses remain on the table and warrant further studies”.
WHO experts warned that the tracing thee biological trail to the virus’ earliest origin ‘will get more difficult.’
The WHO sent a team to Wuhan to investigate the origins of the virus in January and concluded that the virus indeed originated from an animal. After collecting several samples of the virus, the team concluded that the virus could not have been a labarotory leak. The team also said that the virus was transmitted to humans from bats, but, via an animal. The team had also said that though the virus could have originated outside the Hunan seafood market, the market is susceptible to the virus.
The team comprises specialists in laboratory safety and biosecurity and experts in geneticists. They will determine, whether the virus indeed originated from a lab. This would be the global health body’s second attempt to trace the origins of the virus and in process, trace the initial instances of the outbreak after the first attempt was deemed ‘insufficient’ for further investigation.
The new scientific team will probe the Wuhan lab leak theory aspect as earlier, WHO Chief Tedros Ghebreyesus said the team will look into the lab leak theory and that China hasn’t yet shared raw data from the early days of the pandemic.
Last month, after a team of American experts, investigated the origins of the virus, the US intelligence community concluded that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, was "not developed" as a biological weapon, with President Joe Biden reiterating that China continues to reject calls for transparency and withhold information about the origins of the virus.
Critical information about the origins of this pandemic exists in 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," Biden said after acknowledging the receipt of the report.
Director of WHO emergency programme, Mike Ryan, on Sunday, said that the WHO-led scientific team that went into the Wuhan Institute of Virology could not “compel China to divulge more data into the origins of COVID-19.”
The coronavirus pandemic has killed 4.7 million people worldwide so far. The likelihood that blood collected from early victims of the coronavirus will become unusable sparked urgency around the investigation. WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus said that as far as the origin probe was concerned “all hypotheses remain on the table and warrant further studies”.
WHO experts warned that the tracing thee biological trail to the virus’ earliest origin ‘will get more difficult.’
