Wow! Data From China Is Missing, WHO Has Difficulty Determining The Origin Of The COVID-19 Outbreak

Illustrated WHO. (Wikimedia Commons/Guilhem Vellut)

JAKARTA - The World Health Organization (WHO) has expressed difficulties in concluding the origin of the COVID-19 outbreak, with the majority of reasons being the loss of data from China.

The report from the WHO panel of experts said all available data suggested the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 may have originated in animals, possibly bats, a conclusion similar to the UN agency's previous work on the topic in 2021 following a trip to China.

Missing data, particularly from China, where the first cases were reported in December 2019, means it is impossible to identify exactly how the virus was first transmitted to humans.

The findings are likely to raise doubts about the possibility of determining how and where the virus emerged.

They will also inject urgency into efforts to overhaul the WHO and its health emergency procedures, as the agency seeks to reassert itself after years of criticism over its handling of the pandemic.

The WHO said the report, the first of several expected from the panel, was also about crafting better ways to investigate the origins of future outbreaks.

Illustration of COVID-19 in China. (Wikimedia Commons/Liuxingy)

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote to the Chinese government twice in February this year seeking more information, the report showed, although the authors also said China had provided some data on request.

The origins of the pandemic, which has killed at least 15 million people, have been politicized. Scientists say it is important to establish what happened to prevent a similar outbreak.

But the team on the panel, the Scientific Advisory Group on the Origin of Novel Pathogens (SAGO), said it was still not possible to do so due to a lack of data.

They also said there were "acknowledged challenges" in investigating the "long time after the initial outbreak", although their work would continue.

"The longer it takes, the harder it gets," Maria Van Kerkhove, senior WHO official at the SAGO secretariat, told the briefing, adding that WHO would support all ongoing efforts to better understand how the pandemic started.

"We owe it to ourselves, we owe it to the millions who died and the billions who were infected," he said.

The report said no new information was provided about the possibility of SARS-CoV-2 being introduced to humans through a laboratory incident. It remains important to consider all plausible scientific data to evaluate this possibility.

Illustration of COVID-19 in China. (Wikimedia Commons/N509FZ)

Reflecting the political strife that has plagued the preparation of the report, it includes a footnote outlining how panel members from Brazil, China and Russia disagree, further study is needed on the laboratory hypothesis and suggests nothing has changed since the previous joint WHO-China report on the origins. proposal, published in March 2021.

Not only that, the report also includes a long list of recommendations for further studies that could shed more light on the origins of COVID-19.

Among them are seeking information about the earliest cases in Wuhan, China, as well as further studies on the animal market in Wuhan, which was identified early on as a potential location for the virus to jump to humans.

A 2021 report called the laboratory leak highly unlikely, suggesting the most plausible theory was an animal spill. Meanwhile, subsequent US intelligence reports said both theories remained plausible, even though they were too skewed towards natural origins.