Experts urge fresh Wuhan inquiry

SCIENTISTS have called for a new investigation into the origins of the pandemic amid concerns Beijing exerted political influence over the World Health Organisation team leading a probe in China.

In an open letter, published yesterday, a group of 26 experts in areas including virology, zoology and microbiology claimed the WHO mission did not “constitute a thorough, credible and transparent investigation”.

“We believe it essential that all hypotheses about the origins of the pandemic be thoroughly examined and full access to all necessary resources be provided without regard to political or other sensitivities,” the letter added.

Earlier this year, the WHO team spent four weeks in Wuhan – where the first Covid-19 cases were detected in 2019 – to investigate how the virus emerged.

The scientists said that while “all hypotheses remain open”, it was highly unlikely that the virus had come from a laboratory. Instead, they maintained, Sars-cov-2 most likely jumped from bats to humans via an as-yet-unknown intermediary host.

While most experts expected inconclusive findings – establishing the origin of diseases usually takes years, if not decades – the lack of a “smoking gun” has heightened geopolitical tension.

The Chinese government, which has called for similar Who-led missions to other countries, used the investigation to push the theory that the virus spread to Wuhan via frozen food packaging.

Meanwhile, the United States has implied it will independently verify the initial conclusions, and the UK has expressed concern that the team of international scientists was not given full access to required data.

The investigators were expected to publish a summary report within weeks of leaving China, but The Daily Telegraph understands that this has been pushed back.

Since the team left Wuhan, they and their counterparts in China have been jointly editing and finalising a draft of a full report which looks set to be published alongside the summary in the next two to three weeks.

“The rationale is straightforward – everything that would be in the summary report has already been discussed with the press and published in the media,” Dr Peter Daszak, an ecologist and member of the WHO team, told The Telegraph.

Those defending the international mission say its aim was never to “investigate” and catch out China. Instead, it was to study and better understand the origins of the outbreak through “scientific and collaborative field missions”.

But, in the open letter criticising the trip, a group of experts from countries including France, the US and Australia criticised the mission’s scope.

“The joint Who-china team had neither the mandate, independence nor the access necessary to conduct a full and unrestricted investigation,” said Etienne Decroly, a molecular virologist at Aix-marseille University in France and a signatory of the letter.

The WHO “had to rely on information the Chinese authorities chose to share with them”, the letter adds.

But others have said a new inquiry is unlikely given the problems of entering China – the WHO mission was delayed after members had “visa issues”.