E-Paper
Covid-19: China warns against ‘manipulation’ of new WHO virus origin probe
The WHO on Wednesday announced a new probe to trace the origin of the Covid-19 virus and released a proposed list of 25 experts to advise it on next steps
China warned against “political manipulation” as the World Health Organization’s (WHO) decision to form a new team to investigate the origin of Covid-19. Beijing, however, added that it will support the probe.
The coronavirus first emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019, triggering the worst pandemic in a century.
The WHO on Wednesday announced a new probe to trace the origin of the virus and released a proposed list of 25 experts to advise it on next steps.
Chinese scientist Yungui Yang of Beijing Institute of Genomics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences is a leading Chinese scientist included in the Scientific Advisory Group on the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO).
Beijing has dismissed accusations that it withheld critical data during an earlier WHO probe into the origin of Covid-19 in February, saying that the investigation was politicised by the US and that the scope of the search should be widened to other countries.
Asked to comment on the new probe, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said it should be carried out in the “spirit of science” and shouldn’t be used as a political tool.
“China will continue to support and participate in international coronavirus origins -tracing, yet opposes any form of political manipulation on the issue,” Zhao said on Thursday.
“China has always maintained that the tracing of virus origins is a serious and complex scientific issue, and that research should be conducted by scientists in cooperation,” Zhao said.
He added that the result of the previous study on the matter should be respected.
In August, vice foreign minister Ma Zhaoxu had said China opposes “political tracing… and abandoning the joint report” issued after a WHO expert team visited Wuhan in January.
“We support scientific tracing,” Ma had said.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in June that it was premature to rule out a potential link between the Covid-19 pandemic and a laboratory leak, adding that he had asked China to be more transparent as scientists search for the origin of the coronavirus.
National health commission (NHC) vice minister Zeng Yixin had also told reporters in June that the WHO’s second planned probe had listed the hypothesis that China had violated lab regulations and leaked the virus as one of the major research objectives, and he was “very shocked” after reading the proposal.
Zeng said China cannot accept the current version of the WHO plan because it has been compromised by political manipulation and disrespects scientific facts.
