In its quest to find out the origin of the Covid-19 epidemic, the World Health Organization on Thursday asked all countries, particularly China where a laboratory leak is suspected, to release “all virus data”.
“To specifically address the + laboratory hypothesis, it is important to have access to all primary data, to consider best scientific practices,” the World Health Organization said in a statement, stressing that China had hinted. Pressure regarding studies on the origin of the coronavirus.
“Sharing data and allowing samples to be re-examined (…) is nothing more than what we urge all countries, including China, to support so that we can move forward in studying the origins of (the epidemic) quickly and efficiently,” the WHO added.
For Peter Embark, head of the delegation of international scientists sent by the organization to China to detect the origin of the Covid virus, the virus leaking from a laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the first cases were discovered at the end of 2019, is one of the “possible” assumptions.
data draft
“An employee (in the laboratory) infected in the field during sampling falls under one possible hypothesis. This is where the virus is transmitted directly from bats to humans.
In a documentary called “The Virus Mystery – A Dane Seeks the Truth in China” broadcast Thursday on the Danish channel, the world has sharply criticized Beijing. According to him, it was difficult for his team to discuss this theory with Chinese scientists.
The WHO delegation received permission to visit two laboratories where research on bats is being carried out. “We dealt with a presentation, then we were able to talk and ask the questions we wanted to ask, but we didn’t have the opportunity to go back to any documents,” the insured said during these visits.
He added that none of the bats live in the wild in the Wuhan area, and that the only people who are likely to have come into close contact with bats suspected of being infected with the SARS-Cove-2 virus are employees of the city’s laboratories.
“lab hypothesis”
“In order to be able to examine the +laboratory hypothesis, it is important to have access to all the preliminary data,” the WHO said in its Thursday evening press release.
It adds that analyzing and improving security protocols in all laboratories around the world “including in China is important to our collective security.”
The organization insists that it is of “vital importance” to know how the Covid-19 epidemic began. “Access to data should in no way be a political issue.”
The organization added that based on “what we have already learned, the next round of studies will include a review of preliminary data for the first cases and the first possible cases in 2019”.
The epidemic killed at least 4.3 million people, according to a statistic confirmed by AFP from official sources. But the WHO estimates, taking into account the increase in deaths directly and indirectly related to Covid-19, the epidemic toll could be two to three times higher.