WHO chief says Wuhan Covid lab leak theory can’t be ruled out and insists China should help solve the ‘origin’ of virus
THE head of the World Health Organisation has said the Wuhan lab leak theory can’t be ruled out and that China should help solve the mystery of where Covid came from.
WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, 56, urged more “transparency” from China in the ongoing investigation and suggested that Beijing had not fully co-operated.
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Where Covid-19 originated from has still not been established although two main theories have emerged – either from animal contact at a wet market in Wuhan or a leak from the research laboratory in the same Chinese city.
China has repeatedly stated it is not responsible for the global pandemic and dismissed conspiracy theories that say the virus was made by humans.
US President Joe Biden last month ordered US intelligence agencies to report in the next three months on whether Covid-19 emerged from an animal or during a laboratory accident.
Dr Tedros, speaking at a G7 summit briefing, said the possibility of it coming from a lab leak hadn’t been ruled out and that “every hypothesis should be open”.
He said that so far 3.75million people had died from the virus and at least 174m were confirmed to have contracted the disease.
A WHO task force spent four weeks investigating the outbreak in Wuhan in January and February.
The organisation concluded it was "extremely unlikely" that it was caused by a lab leak, but noted that further investigation is needed.
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However, earlier this month a group of leading scientists said the possibility of coronavirus accidentally escaping from the Wuhan lab in China "remains viable."
In a letter published in the journal Science, 18 researchers from Stanford, Harvard, MIT and Cambridge blasted the WHO and scientists who followed it for failing to consider that there may have been an "accidental" lab escape.