WHO to reconsider China Covid-19 lab origin theory
World Health Organisation (WHO) is expected to restudy the "dominant theory" that the SARS-CoV-2 probably originated and spread across the world from China's Wuhan lab, according to reports.
According to CNN, previously overlooked Chinese data on extensive screening of animals for coronavirus around the time the pandemic erupted is among several areas identified for further study by WHO scientists investigating the origins of the virus, as per a source.
The records are contained in a nearly 200-page annexe posted alongside the WHO panel's March report that received little attention among global experts at the time. "But the data may add weight to calls from China's critics for more transparency and to the WHO team's desire to return to the country for further studies," it said.
However, no date has been set for the team's return to China, but the source said any future visit to the country may involve "smaller groups supporting specific studies first." A larger group, similar to the
17 international experts that visited in January, might then follow up, the source added.
The WHO report's annex contains multiple data points providing an intriguing insight into China's evolving knowledge of the virus and the likely timing of its emergence. It provides details of China's storage and destruction of positive samples from humans; a significant influenza outbreak that emerged in December 2019, at the same time as the virus. US former state secretary Mike also Pompeo claimed that every piece of evidence points to a leak of coronavirus from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). He also said that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
must be held
"accountable" for it. WHO told to review spiked Italy report Whistleblower protection groups urged WHO Wednesday to launch an independent review into the case of an Italian researcher who reported being pressured to falsify data in a now-spiked WHO report into Italy's coronavirus response. The groups, including Transparency International, Whistleblowing International Network and some 30 other public health and anti-corruption groups, sent an open letter to the president of the World Health Assembly. In the letter, the signatories called for the U.N. agency to commit to reforming its whistleblowing protection policy. They said the Italian researcher, Dr. Francesco Zambon, had suffered retaliatory treatment for having reported the incident within WHO's internal ethics system. Zambon resigned in March, saying he had been isolated and marginalized after he complained internally, and then publicly, about the scandal.