translated from Spanish: WHO director called for more transparency from China over the origin of the Coronavirus: “We need to continue the investigation to find out what really happened”

The director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, today called on China for more transparency in reporting the first cases of COVID-19, and warned that knowing the origins of the coronavirus “is an outstanding debt to millions of people who have suffered from it.” We call on China to be transparent and open, to cooperate especially by providing the raw data on the first days of the pandemic,” he said in a press appearance with German Health Minister Jens Spahn, who joined the Chinese authorities in this wake-up call. Tedros said that after the first phase of investigations, which culminated in a visit by international experts to Wuhan (the central Chinese city where the first cases were diagnosed), a second one is already being designed.” We need to continue the investigation to know what really happened, because if we finish knowing it, it can help us to avoid similar future crises,” said the Ethiopian expert. Tedros admitted that “there has been a lot of pressure” to rule out the hypothesis that the pandemic arose in a laboratory accident (a theory that has been especially highlighted by U.S. media and authorities), but argued that “to exclude it you need more complete information.” The director general also admitted that “laboratory accidents can happen” and said that he himself, working in such facilities in the past as an expert in immunology, had some mistakes.” Reviewing what happened in the laboratories is important, and we need direct information on the situation of those facilities before the pandemic and at the beginning of it,” he concluded. Tedros’ statements represent a striking change in tone after months in which he had declined to comment publicly on the theory of the laboratory or the attitude of the Chinese authorities in the investigations, which began months late and quite a few obstacles for experts from the WHO and other agencies. Following these experts’ visit to Wuhan earlier this year, a report was issued arguing that the most likely hypothesis of the origin of the coronavirus was that it had been transmitted to humans from wild animals via one or more species that acted as intermediaries. The research also indicated that the least likely hypothesis was that of origin in a laboratory, and also did not consider contagion through imported frozen foods to be too plausible, a theory frequently defended by official Chinese media.



Original source in Spanish

Related Posts

Add Comment