India backs fresh WHO probe into Covid origin
NEW DELHI: India on Thursday backed the World Health Organization’s (WHO) decision to create an expert group to examine the origins of new pathogens, including the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, and said all countries should cooperate with the probe.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced the launch of the Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (Sago) at a news briefing on Wednesday, and Michael Ryan, executive director of WHO’S health emergencies programme, said this represented the “last chance” to determine the origins of Sars-cov-2.
Responding to WHO’S announcement, China warned against any “political manipulation” of the renewed probe into the origins of Covid-19.
India has consistently backed all moves by WHO to establish the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic, which first emerged in Wuhan, China, and called on all stakeholders, including China, to cooperate with such efforts. External affairs ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi reiterated this position when he was asked about the new expert group at a regular news briefing on Thursday.
“Let me just reiterate what we have stated till now – we have our interest in further studies and data on this issue of the origin [of the coronavirus] and the need for understanding and
by all concerned,” he said, without naming China.
The Indian side, he said, was gathering details of what the new move by WHO would entail.
Raman Gangakhedkar, the Dr CG Pandit National Chair at the Indian Council of Medical Research in India, and Yungui Yang of the Beijing Institute of Genomics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, are among the 26 members of Sago.
Almost two years after it was first reported from Wuhan, the origins of Covid-19 are unclear, with scientists not being able to
even find the so-called intermediary animal that was infected by the zoonotic virus, before it jumped to humans. In the case of the Sars epidemic in 2001-02, a bat virus first spread to civets, and then to people. In 2012, the Mers virus in West Asia similarly jumped from bats to camels to humans.
The so-called lab-leak hypothesis has also gained currency because Wuhan is home to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, one of the world’s top coronavirus research facilities. While scientists were quick to endorse a natcooperation
ural origin theory early on, with Beijing seemingly stonewalling a proper enquiry, and an intermediary not being found, some experts started questioning the science behind the endorsement.
Indeed, it is still not clear which of the two theories is the correct one — which makes the role of the new expert group that much more important.
Asked about the new probe, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said it should be conducted in the “spirit of science” and not used as a political tool.