India backs 62-nation coalition probe into Covid-19 origin

INDIA, (HINDUSTAN TIMES), MAY 17, 2020 - India has backed calls to identify how the Sars-cov-2 virus that causes Covid-19 was transmitted from animals to humans and conduct an ‘impartial’ evaluation of the World Health Organisation’s response to the pandemic, according to a draft resolution proposed for the WHO’S annual meet beginning tomorrow. New Delhi’s decision to sign off on the push for an inquiry led by the European Union and Australia is the first time that India has formally articulated its stand on the Covid-19 outbreak that was detected in central China’s Wuhan city late last year. The disease has, at last count, killed over 300,000 people worldwide and devastated the global economy.

China, which has been accused of concealing information about the virus in the early days of the outbreak, had later contested that the deadly Sarscov-2 pathogen detected in its territory could have originated just about anywhere.

World Health Organisation and its director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, a former Ethopian minister, was elected with support from China in 2017.