The director of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said he was willing to send a new mission of experts to China to find out the origin of Covid-19 and called for "full access."
"We urge China to give full access and we ask countries to raise the issue in their bilateral meetings (to urge China) to cooperate," Tedros declared in an interview published by the British newspaper Financial Times cited by news agencies. Telam and AFP.
Dr. Tedros explained that the WHO has already asked China "in writing" to "provide information" and added: "We are willing to send a team if they allow us."
The international community has not yet been able to determine with certainty the origin of COVID-19, the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the first cases of which were detected in late 2019 in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.
There are two opposing theories about the origin of this coronavirus: a leak from a laboratory in the city where these pathogens were studied, or that an animal infected people who frequented a local market.
A team of specialists led by the WHO and accompanied by Chinese collaborators investigated the country in early 2021. In a joint report, they leaned toward the hypothesis that the highly contagious virus was transmitted by an animal that acted as an intermediary between the bat and the human, possibly in a Wuhan market.
But Tedros later stated that "all hypotheses remain on the table."
No team was able to return to China and WHO officials repeatedly demanded additional data. Its director stated several times that the UN health agency has no intention of abandoning the investigation, and insisted to China on "transparency when sharing data, carrying out the necessary investigations and sharing the results."
