China has rejected the World Health Organization’s proposal for a second phase of investigation into the origin of the coronavirus pandemic.
Zeng Yixin, deputy minister of the Chinese Health Commission, told reporters in Beijing on Thursday that he was extremely surprised to read that the proposal provided by the UN health agency included laboratory tests in the city of Wuhan, where the virus was detected. for the first time at the end of 2019.
Mr Zeng said the WHO proposal to trace the origin of the coronavirus was illogical and showed a lack of respect for science and made it “impossible” for Beijing to accept it.
A team of WHO researchers visited Wuhan earlier this year to investigate the original cause of the virus. The team concluded that the virus probably passed from animals to humans and that the chances were extremely small that it had emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, as some experts have speculated. But WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has criticized China for failing to co-operate fully with investigators by not sharing data and calling for an ongoing investigation into all theories, including that it could be an accident. in the laboratory.
Chinese officials and the media have begun speculating that the virus may have come from a U.S. military lab, a theory that has been widely dismissed by the scientific community.
