China dismisses need for further WHO probe on COVID-19 origins
On Thursday the WHO urged China to share data from the earliest Covid-19 cases to revive its probe into the origins of the disease.
FollowChina on Friday rejected the World Health Organization's calls for a renewed probe into the origins of Covid-19, saying it supported "scientific" over "political" efforts to find out how the virus started.
"We oppose political tracing... and abandoning the joint report" issued after a WHO expert team visited Wuhan in January, vice secretary of state Ma Zhaoxu told reporters. "We support scientific tracing."
The WHO, on Thursday urged China to share data from the earliest Covid-19 cases to revive its probe into the origins of the disease.
Pressure is again mounting on Beijing to think about a fresh probe into the origins of an epidemic which has killed over four million people and paralysed economies worldwide since it first emerged within the central Chinese city of Wuhan.
A delayed and heavily politicised visit by a WHO team of international experts visited Wuhan in January 2021 to supply a primary phase report, which was written in conjunction with their Chinese counterparts. It failed to conclude how the virus began.
A report said the virus jumping from bats to humans via an intermediate animal was the most probable scenario, while a leak from Wuhan's virology labs was "extremely unlikely".
In the face of China's reluctance to open up to outside investigators, experts are increasingly hospitable considering the idea that the virus may have leaked out of a lab, once dismissed as a conspiracy propagated by the US far-right.
Meanwhile, even WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated that the initial probe into Wuhan's virology labs had not gone far enough, while President Joe Biden in May ordered a separate investigation into the origins of the virus from the US intelligence community.
A WHO call last month for the investigation's second stage to incorporate audits of the Wuhan labs infuriated Beijing, with vice health minister Zeng Yixin saying the plan showed "disrespect for common sense and arrogance towards science".
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