Geneva, Feb 15, (dpa/GNA) – The World Health Organization (WHO) continues to urge China to cooperate more, in the search for the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus.
WHO Director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said in Geneva on Wednesday that the organization had sent another letter to a senior official in Beijing, seven weeks ago asking for cooperation.
The specially-established Council of Independent Experts on Strategies for Tracing the Origins of New Pathogens (Sago), has made clear recommendations for the studies needed in China, WHO Emergency Relief Coordinator Mike Ryan said.
It is up to member countries to conduct such studies, he said, and WHO is awaiting the results. Tedros has repeatedly offered support to China and demanded, that these studies be carried out, he said.
“Until and unless we have those studies, all hypotheses regarding the origins of this specific virus remain on the table,” Ryan stressed.
He was referring to the hypothesis, repeatedly rejected by China, that the virus could have escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan, China.
The scientific journal Nature, had written in a high-profile article that the WHO had abandoned the next phase of the scientific investigation.
“The World Health Organization (WHO) has quietly shelved the second phase of its much-anticipated scientific investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, citing ongoing challenges over attempts to conduct crucial studies in China, Nature has learned,” it said.
The WHO has energetically rejected this account.
GNA