Geneva: The World Health Organization has proposed a second phase of study in China to the origin of Coronavirus, including a laboratory audit in Wuhan, but there has been no sign that Beijing will receive further international investigations, diplomats said.
WHO Director General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, presented plans to member countries at a closed meeting on Friday, a day after saying that the investigation was hampered by a lack of raw data on the first days of spread in China.
The WHO led team spent four weeks in and around downtown Wuhan with Chinese researchers and said in a joint report in March that the virus might be transmitted from bats to humans through other animals.
But countries including the United States and some scientists demand further investigation, especially to the Virology Wuhan Institute who conducted research into bats.
The planned call for further studies in China, but not in other countries, and especially for laboratory audits around Wuhan, diplomats said.
China’s mission to the United Nations in Geneva did not respond to a comment request.
“We need information, direct information about this lab situation before and at the beginning of the pandemic.
Then, if we get complete information, we can exclude it.
One more challenge is, you know, the challenge of access and also transparency related to the hypothesis placed , “Tedro told reporters on Thursday.
China has called the theory that the virus may have escaped from the Wuhan “Absurd” laboratory and said it repeatedly that the “politicization” problem will hamper investigations.
On the direction of regular news on Friday, when asked about Tedros’s comments, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian, said that some data could not be copied or left China because it involved personal information.
It is not clear whether the WHO plan is a “wish list”, one diplomat to Reuters, added, “This truly oppose what the Chinese have said for the past few months.” The Chinese mission for the United Nations in Geneva issued a statement on Thursday night by saying that 48 developing countries have written to WHO calling for “global studies of tracing origin” to be guided by science and not by politics.
“However, for some time, a handful of countries, led by the US, have mensigating epidemics, placing geographical labels on viruses and politicizing origin of origin,” he said.