Beijing should offer more information on the origins of Covid-19, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said.
“If we know [the origin], then we can prevent the next one. So it’s science,” he said. “It will not be morally correct if we don’t know what happened,” the WHO chief was quoted as saying by the Financial Times.
The World Health Organization (WHO) is ready to send a second team to probe the matter, as the genesis of the pandemic remains unclear nearly four years after the first cases emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan, Tedros said.
“We’re pressing China to give full access, and we are asking countries to raise it during their bilateral meetings — [to urge Beijing] to co-operate,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “We have already asked in writing to give us information . . . and also [are] willing to send a team if they allow us to do so,” the Financial Times reported.
The WHO chief’s comments come as health authorities update vaccines after a rise in coronavirus cases. Though scientists are in agreement that the world is no longer in the acute phase of the pandemic, the global health body said nations should increase surveillance of the highly mutated BA.2.86 and other Omicron subvariants.
The two most prominent theories envisage either a zoonotic jump from animals to humans via Wuhan’s wet food markets or contagion stemming from an accidental leak from the city’s virology laboratory. But no scientific consensus has emerged from the debate, and Tedros reiterated that all options remained “on the table”.
“Unless we get evidence beyond reasonable doubt, we cannot just say this or that,” he said. But he believes “we will get the answer. It’s a matter of time,” the report quoted Tedros as saying.
World leaders will for the first time discuss pandemic preparedness at high-level meetings during the UN’s General Assembly in New York next week, the Financial Times report said.