It turns out that WHO abandoned the second phase of the new coronavirus origin investigation scheduled to be conducted in China
The World Health Organization (WHO), which has been investigating the origin of the new coronavirus, has abandoned the second phase of the investigation planned for China. The scientific journal Nature says that the reason for the abandonment of the plan is 'because of ongoing problems with conducting research in China.'
WHO abandons plans for crucial second phase of COVID-origins investigation
A new type of coronavirus infection (COVID-19) was confirmed in Wuhan, China at the end of December 2019, and since the beginning of 2020, the infection has spread around the world and has become a pandemic. At the time of writing the article, more than 600 million infected people have been confirmed worldwide, and it is reported that 6.85 million people have died .
At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, former US President Donald Trump and others claimed that ``the virus leaked from a Chinese laboratory,'' and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the time also said, ``The virus laboratory leaked theory. There is a lot of evidence about the
WHO has launched an investigation into the origin of the new coronavirus at the request of member states, and in January 2021 sent an investigative team to Wuhan, China. However, the Chinese authorities requested that they stay in the hotel as a quarantine measure for two weeks during the four-week investigation period, and they were only allowed to visit facilities approved by the Chinese government. They also refused to hand over unedited data on early patients.
China refuses to hand over unedited data to WHO's new corona investigation team-GIGAZINE
A WHO investigative team published a report summarizing the findings in March 2021, presenting four possible scenarios for the origin of the new coronavirus. The most likely scenario in the report is that ``the new coronavirus was transmitted from bats to humans via an intermediate species,'' and the second is that ``animals directly infected humans.'' The third scenario is in line with China's claim that the virus was brought in from another country through frozen food, and the least likely scenario is that the virus leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan. was the scenario.
Following a first phase investigation into the origins of the new coronavirus, WHO had planned a second phase investigation to pinpoint what happened in China and elsewhere in the early days of the outbreak. The second phase was planned to include a survey of wildlife markets in and around Wuhan, farms that supply animals to those markets, and regional laboratories where early cases were confirmed.
However, China rejected the plan for the second phase, citing the WHO's proposal to 'investigate the laboratory' as a problem. China's foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said the WHO's proposal for a second phase had not been agreed by all member states and should not focus on the leaked laboratory rumor, which was already deemed highly unlikely. claimed.
The lack of cooperation from Chinese authorities stalled the second phase, and the WHO eventually abandoned the second phase. 'There is no second phase. Plans have changed,' WHO epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove told Nature. I ended up doing it,” he said. Researchers outside the WHO have also expressed disappointment because understanding how the new coronavirus began is important in preventing future pandemics, says Nature.
Gerald Keusch, deputy director of the National Institute of Emerging Infectious Diseases at Boston University, pointed out that the efforts of the international community, China, and the WHO to investigate the origin of the new coronavirus were inadequate, and the WHO has been working with Chinese authorities. He argues that he should have been proactive in building cooperative relationships. Meanwhile, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus continues to reach out to Chinese authorities, calling for open sharing of data, and WHO staff are also trying to establish collaboration with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. said.
Although the WHO-led formal investigation has stopped, several studies scheduled for the second phase are being pursued by other teams. In a paper published in May 2022, no antibodies to the new coronavirus were found in donated blood samples collected from September to December 2019, and the virus did not spread in Wuhan in the second half of 2019. was suggested. Michael Worobey, an evolutionary virologist at the University of Arizona, said the paper is an important contribution made by Chinese researchers and supports early genomic results.
Also, at the time of writing, an unpeer-reviewed paper reported that traces of the new coronavirus were found in samples collected in early 2020 at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan. The research team speculated that these viruses were expelled from humans, suggesting that the infection was spreading at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in early 2020.
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