London : The World Health Organization said on Thursday that its latest investigation into the origins of COVID-19 was inconclusive, mainly because China’s data is missing, in another blow to its years-long effort to determine how the pandemic began.
All available data show the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 may have come from animals, possibly bats, in line with the UN agency’s previous work on the subject in 2021, the WHO expert panel report said. Same conclusion that came after a trip to China.
The missing data, especially from China, where the first cases were reported in December 2019, meant it was not possible to identify how the virus first reached humans.
The findings are likely to raise doubts that it will be possible to determine exactly how and where the virus emerged.
They will also introduce urgency in an effort to transform the WHO and its health emergency procedures as the agency tries to reinvent itself after years of criticism for its handling of the pandemic.
The WHO says the report, the first of many expected from the panel, is also about creating a better way to investigate the origins of future outbreaks.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus twice wrote letters to the Chinese government in February this year, the report showed, although the authors also said China had provided some data upon request.
The origins of the pandemic, which has killed at least 15 million people, have been politicised. Scientists say it is important to establish what happened to prevent a similar outbreak.
The longer it takes, the harder it gets
But the panel’s team – known as the Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO) – said it was still impossible to do because of a lack of data. They also say that there are “recognized challenges” in the investigation “so long after the initial outbreak”, although their work will continue.
“The longer it takes, the harder it gets,” Maria Van Kerkhove, a senior WHO official at the SAGO Secretariat, told a briefing, adding that the WHO will support all ongoing efforts to better understand why How did the pandemic start?
“We owe it to ourselves, we are indebted to the millions who died and the billions who were infected,” she said.
The report said that no new information was provided on the possibility that SARS-CoV-2 was introduced into humans through a laboratory event, and “on all pertinent scientific data” to evaluate this possibility. important to consider”.
Reflecting the political wrangling that influenced the drafting of the report, it included a footnote describing how panel members from Brazil, China and Russia disagreed that further study on the laboratory hypothesis was needed and suggested Given that nothing has changed since the last WHO-China. Joint report on the original, published in March 2021.
The latest report also includes a framework for how to pinpoint the origins of future outbreaks, which the WHO called the central objective of the panel, rather than drawing conclusions on COVID-19.
Jean-Claude Manuguera, Sago’s co-president, said monkeypox was an “example of how much we need this global framework” to track how pathogens of the future emerge.
When the panel was set up in October, WHO’s head of emergencies Mike Ryan said it was the “best chance … it could be our last” to understand the origins of the coronavirus.
The report also includes a long list of recommendations for further studies that could shed more light on the origins of COVID-19.
These include information on early cases in Wuhan, China, as well as further studies about the animal market in Wuhan, which was quickly identified as a possible location for the virus to humans.
The 2021 report called a laboratory leak “highly unlikely” and suggested that the most plausible theory was a spillover from animals. Later US intelligence reports said both theories remained plausible, although this too leaned toward natural origins.