The WHO on October 13 released a list of 26 members of the Scientific Advisory Group on Pathogens (SAGO) consisting of international experts in various fields who will participate in the investigation of the origin of Covid-19. phase two.
Mike Ryan, WHO’s emergencies program director, said the new advisory group could be "the last chance" to find out the origin of SARS-CoV-2 - the virus that has been crippling the whole world.
"This is the best chance and possibly the last chance to determine the origin of the pandemic," Ryan stressed.
The Covid-19 pandemic started at the end of 2019 with the first cases recorded from a seafood and wildlife market in Wuhan city, Hubei province, China. China has repeatedly rejected the theory that the pandemic virus originated in one of its laboratories.
Earlier this year, a team of experts led by WHO traveled to China to investigate for four weeks. The investigative report later said that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was most likely transmitted to humans through an intermediate host such as animals such as bats.
However, WHO officials emphasized the need to expand the investigation further. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the investigation into the pandemic’s origins had been hampered by a lack of raw data regarding the early days of the outbreak. He called on China to share more raw data related to the first Covid-19 cases.
Maria van Kerkhove, WHO Technical Team Leader on Covid-19, hopes that there will be more investigations in China and that Beijing will cooperate to investigate the origin of the pandemic. Speaking at a press conference yesterday, Maria said that there are still more than 30 proposed studies that need to be conducted to determine the origin of SARS-CoV-2. In particular, the results of people’s antibody testing in Wuhan city, China in 2019 have "extremely important" meaning.
WHO believes that it is still necessary to investigate in detail the first cases or suspected infections in China before December 2019, including analysis of blood samples stored since 2019 in Wuhan, retrospective data. hospital and mortality data. In addition, laboratories in the area where the first cases were detected in Wuhan are also among the priorities of investigation.
China has so far confirmed that it has shared all necessary data for the investigation of the origin of Covid-19. Mr. Chen Xu, Chinese Ambassador to the United Nations, said that the conclusion from the joint investigation was clear and that international experts had twice visited China to investigate, so now is the time to investigate the other places.
