translated from Spanish: WHO asks not to politicize the scientific search for the origins of the coronavirus

The search for the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, which causes COVID-19, “is not about looking for culprits, pointing the finger or pointing political victories,” the World Health Organization (WHO) said today in a statement calling for the current investigations not to be politicized.” We call on all governments to depoliticize the situation and cooperate to accelerate studies on the origins, with the important objective of developing a common framework for future pathogens with pandemic potential,” the organization said. The statement is released amid mounting pressure from the United States and China (Washington seeks to prove the theory that the coronavirus came out of a laboratory and Beijing wants to scrap it) and on the same day that the head of the WHO’s research team for these origins made important revelations in an interview with the Danish press. Peter Embarek, head of the WHO and other agencies team that visited Wuhan in early 2021 to study the origin of the coronavirus, said in statements published today by Danish television TV2 that COVID-19 could have started after a researcher at a laboratory in that Chinese city became infected with a bat.” The infection of an employee while taking samples is one of the probable hypotheses,” Embarek said in the interview, although he clarified that the WHO mission could not find direct evidence to support that theory. The report of the first WHO mission in Wuhan, published in April, pointed to four possible theories about the origin of COVID-19, although it noted that the origin in a laboratory accident was the least likely. Experts cited as the most possible hypothesis that the coronavirus had originated in nature and passed from an animal or several to humans. The WHO insisted in its statement today that the priority of its scientists is to continue their research on the basis of that first report and “accelerate scientific efforts around all hypotheses.” He said that in subsequent phases of the investigation (which could include further visits to Wuhan) it is essential to have raw data on the first cases of COVID-19 in China, after the who criticized the Chinese authorities for not providing them following the first investigation.” Searching for the origins of a new virus is an immensely difficult task that takes time,” summarized the WHO, which acknowledged that the Chinese authorities have contacted it to express unease over the politicization of the investigation, which they consider the result of pressures outside the United Nations agency.

Original source in Spanish