China to be transparent in sharing data to trace origin of COVID: WHO

United Nations/Geneva: The World Health Organization (WHO) has criticized China for withholding data relating to samples taken at a market in Wuhan in 2020 that could have provided vital information about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. The organization has asked China to be transparent and share the results of the investigation. The Huanan market in central China’s Wuhan city was the epicenter of the pandemic. SARS-CoV-2, after originating there, rapidly spread from Wuhan to other locations in late 2019 and then to the rest of the world. Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), said in Geneva on Friday, “Every piece of data related to the study of the origin of Kovid??-19 needs to be shared with the international community immediately. These data should have been shared three years ago.

He said, ‘We call on China to be transparent in sharing data, conducting necessary investigations and sharing results. It remains an ethical and scientific imperative to find out how the pandemic originated.” Gebreyes said last Sunday the WHO was made aware of the publication of data on the GISAID database in late January and recently It was taken down again. He said that ‘this data from China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention is related to samples taken in Huanan market in Wuhan in 2020.’

Gebreyes said that when the data was online, scientists in many countries downloaded and analyzed it. He said, “As soon as we became aware of this data, we contacted China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention and urged them to share it with WHO and the international scientific community so that it can be analyzed.” Gebreyes said that the WHO called a meeting of the Scientific Advisory Group on the Origin of the Virus (SAGO) and its meeting took place on Tuesday. The WHO chief said, ‘We asked scientists from China’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and scientists from an international group to present their analysis of the data to SAGO. This data does not definitively answer the question of how the pandemic started, but every piece of data is important in getting us closer to that answer.

The animals were then removed from the market and researchers took samples from the walls and from the cages and carts used to transport them. Found in them, the international research team found genetic material related to animals, including a large amount of raccoon dog DNA. ”It has been said in the news that the international team cooperated with those Chinese researchers after encountering the new data. got in touch with the offering who had uploaded the above data. However, the data was later removed from GISAID. The report states that the “mixing together” of genetic material from the virus and animals does not prove that a raccoon dog itself was infected. “Even if a raccoon dog was infected, it is not clear whether it spread the virus,” the report said. It is possible that the virus may have spread to humans from another animal, or that the virus may have spread to a raccoon dog from a person infected with the virus.