The World Health Organization (WHO) says efforts to uncover the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic are still ongoing and incomplete, as critical information has “not been provided”.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said “all hypotheses must remain on the table” to determine the cause of the virus, also known as SARS-CoV-2, after an expert group investigating its origins reached an unsatisfying conclusion in its final report released on Friday.
“We continue to appeal to China and any other country that has information about the origins of COVID-19 to share that information openly, in the interests of protecting the world from future pandemics,” Tedros said.
The global pandemic, which began in 2020, killed millions worldwide, with countries enforcing lockdowns in an attempt to stop the spread of the virus. With the first cases detected in Wuhan, China, in late 2019, information from the country is seen as key to preventing future pandemics.
In 2021, Tedros launched the WHO Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO), a panel of 27 independent international experts.
Marietjie Venter, the group’s chair, said on Friday that most scientific data supports the hypothesis that the new coronavirus jumped to humans from animals.
But she added that after more than three years of work, SAGO was unable to get the necessary data to evaluate whether or not COVID was the result of a lab accident, despite repeated requests for detailed information made to the Chinese government.
“Therefore, this hypothesis could not be investigated or excluded,” she said, however adding, “It was deemed to be very speculative, based on political opinions and not backed up by science.”
Venter also said there was no evidence to prove that COVID had been manipulated in a lab, nor was there any indication that the virus had been spreading before December 2019 anywhere outside of China.
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