The WHO (World Health Organization) made this Friday (17) its umpteenth call for China to share all the scientific information that may be useful in determining the origin of the Covid-19 pandemic, after finding that the giant Asia keeps genetic and molecular results on the animal market pointed out as the first focus of the health emergency.
The information, which comes from the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC, its acronym in English) in China, was posted on an open access scientific platform in January and discovered by European experts who analyzed it and reported their results to the WHO, but since then all this data has been removed.
The WHO indicated that as soon as it learned of the case (five days ago) it asked the Chinese authorities to make the information available, which has not yet happened.
The entity clarified that these data do not allow drawing a definitive conclusion about how the pandemic began, but constitute “an important piece for us to get closer to a response.”
Western scientists who were able to download and work with the information from China presented their findings to a WHO expert group dedicated to establishing the origin of new pathogens, including the cause of Covid-19.
The WHO has asked China to send the data directly to these experts so that it can be analyzed more widely later.
The organization’s director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said at a virtual press conference that “this information could and should have been shared three years ago” and reiterated his call on China to act with transparency.
For now, the indirect information that the organization has received corresponds to genetic and molecular tests of samples collected at the food and animal market in Wuhan in January 2020 and which were positive for the Sars-CoV-2 virus.
“However, the virus has not been identified in animals or animal samples on the market, nor have we found animals that have infected humans,” said WHO technical officer for combating the pandemic, Maria Van Kherkove.
“We directly ask the China CDC to make this information available to the international community. Any information that exists, any data that exists, whether from China or another country, must be shared,” he reiterated.
The epidemiologist emphasized that there are still different hypotheses about the origin of the coronavirus, which has caused nearly seven million deaths worldwide, 5,000 of them in the last week alone.
To this end, the WHO told China that it should carry out further studies to trace the animal that may have acted as an intermediary and infected humans, from the leak of the virus from a laboratory, as well as the place of origin of the animals in the Wuhan market.
“The part of information we don’t have so far, for example, is where the animals came from, which farm. We also asked for serological tests from people who worked at the market or on the farms where the animals came from, but these are all questions that have not been answered”, lamented Van Kherkove.
By EFE Agency
The WHO (World Health Organization) made this Friday (17) its umpteenth call for China to share all the scientific information that may be useful in determining the origin of the Covid-19 pandemic, after finding that the giant Asia keeps genetic and molecular results on the animal market pointed out as the first focus of the health emergency.
The information, which comes from the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC, its acronym in English) in China, was posted on an open access scientific platform in January and discovered by European experts who analyzed it and reported their results to the WHO, but since then all this data has been removed.
The WHO indicated that as soon as it learned of the case (five days ago) it asked the Chinese authorities to make the information available, which has not yet happened.
The entity clarified that these data do not allow drawing a definitive conclusion about how the pandemic began, but constitute “an important piece for us to get closer to a response.”
Western scientists who were able to download and work with the information from China presented their findings to a WHO expert group dedicated to establishing the origin of new pathogens, including the cause of Covid-19.
The WHO has asked China to send the data directly to these experts so that it can be analyzed more widely later.
The organization’s director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said at a virtual press conference that “this information could and should have been shared three years ago” and reiterated his call on China to act with transparency.
For now, the indirect information that the organization has received corresponds to genetic and molecular tests of samples collected at the food and animal market in Wuhan in January 2020 and which were positive for the Sars-CoV-2 virus.
“However, the virus has not been identified in animals or animal samples on the market, nor have we found animals that have infected humans,” said WHO technical officer for combating the pandemic, Maria Van Kherkove.
“We directly ask the China CDC to make this information available to the international community. Any information that exists, any data that exists, whether from China or another country, must be shared,” he reiterated.
The epidemiologist emphasized that there are still different hypotheses about the origin of the coronavirus, which has caused nearly seven million deaths worldwide, 5,000 of them in the last week alone.
To this end, the WHO told China that it should carry out further studies to trace the animal that may have acted as an intermediary and infected humans, from the leak of the virus from a laboratory, as well as the place of origin of the animals in the Wuhan market.
“The part of information we don’t have so far, for example, is where the animals came from, which farm. We also asked for serological tests from people who worked at the market or on the farms where the animals came from, but these are all questions that have not been answered”, lamented Van Kherkove.
By EFE Agency
