Home » China rejects WHO’s plan to study the origin of COVID-19

China rejects WHO’s plan to study the origin of COVID-19

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A senior health official said that China on Thursday (July 22) rejected the World Health Organization’s (WHO) plan to conduct a second phase of the origin of the new coronavirus, which included the hypothesis that the virus might have leaked from a Chinese laboratory.

The WHO proposed this month to conduct a second phase of research on the origin of China’s new coronavirus, including an audit of Wuhan’s laboratories and markets, and calling on the authorities to increase transparency.

Zeng Yixin, deputy director of the National Health Commission (NHC), told reporters: “We will not accept such a traceability plan because it ignores common sense in some aspects and violates science.”

Zeng Yixin said that when he read the WHO plan for the first time, he was shocked because it listed the hypothesis that China’s violation of the laboratory protocol caused the virus to leak during the research process.

The head of the WHO stated in early July that due to the lack of original data on the first few days of transmission in China, investigations into the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic in China have been hindered.

Zeng Yixin reiterated China’s position that due to privacy considerations, some data cannot be fully shared.

Zeng Yixin said: “We hope that the WHO will seriously consider the considerations and suggestions put forward by Chinese experts, truly treat the tracing of the COVID-19 virus as a scientific issue, and get rid of political interference.”

Zeng Yixin, deputy director of China’s National Health Commission, said that China opposes the politicization of this research.

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The origin of the new coronavirus is still controversial among experts.

The first known case appeared in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019. It is believed that the virus was transmitted to humans from animals sold on the Wuhan market.

In May of this year, US President Joe Biden ordered his assistants to find answers about the origin of the virus, saying that US intelligence agencies are seeking competitive theories that may include the possibility of laboratory accidents in China.

At the press conference, Zeng Yixin joined other Chinese officials and experts to urge the WHO to expand the traceability work to other countries outside of China.

Liang Wannian, the Chinese leader of the WHO Joint Expert Group on the Traceability of New Coronavirus, said: “We believe that the possibility of laboratory leakage is extremely small, and there is no need to invest more energy and effort in this area.” He said that more animal research should be carried out. , Especially in countries with bat populations.

However, Liang Wannian said that the laboratory leakage hypothesis cannot be completely discounted, but suggested that if the evidence is assured, other countries can investigate the possibility of it leaking from their laboratories.

A key part of the laboratory leak theory focused on the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV)’s decision to offline its gene sequence and sample database in 2019.

When asked about this decision, Yuan Zhiming, director of the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told reporters that due to concerns about cyber attacks, these databases are currently only shared internally.

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(This article is based on a Reuters report)

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