Share Covid data, World Health Organization tells China

The World Health Organization has urged China to share more information about how the Covid-19 pandemic began, five years after it began in the city of Wuhan.

“This is of moral and scientific importance,” the WHO said in writing what it called a “special reminder”.

“Without transparency, sharing, and cooperation between countries, the world cannot prevent and prepare for future pandemics and epidemics,” it added.

Most scientists think that the virus was transferred naturally from animals to humans, but some doubts persist that it emerged from a laboratory in Wuhan.

China did not respond to WHO’s comments on Monday. It has previously strongly rejected the lab leak theory.

In September, a group of scientists said that this was “indisputable”. The Covid epidemic started with infected animals sold in the marketrather than a laboratory leak.

They came to this conclusion after analyzing hundreds of samples taken from Wuhan in January 2020.

In its statement, the WHO went back to the early days of Covid and traced its transformation from a local phenomenon to a global pandemic, which led to a global lockdown and a successful race to develop a vaccine.

“Five years ago on December 31, 2019, the WHO office in China published a report by the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission on its website about “pneumonia” in Wuhan, China,” the organization said.

“In the weeks, months and years that followed, Covid-19 changed our lives and our country,” it continued.

The WHO said it “went into effect immediately” when 2020 began. He recalled how his staff activated emergency procedures on January 1 and informed the world three days later.

“On 9-12 January, WHO released its first national guidelines, and on January 13, we gathered our partners to publish the first laboratory tests for Sars-CoV-2,” it added.

The WHO said it wanted to “honor the lives that were changed and lost, recognize those suffering from Covid-19 and prolonged Covid, thank the health workers who have sacrificed so much to care for us, and commit to learning from Covid-19. so that we can have better health tomorrow”.

In May 2023, WHO announced this Covid-19 no longer represents a “global emergency”.

Its head, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said at the time that at least 7 million people had died from the epidemic.

But he added that the real number is “likely” closer to 20 million deaths – almost three times the official estimate.

Since then, the WHO has repeatedly warned against caution about the emergence of future diseases like Covid.

Dr Ghebreyesus has said the next pandemic “could come at any time” and urged the world to be prepared.