China Answers WHO Request To Share Data On The Origin Of The COVID-19 Virus

UNSPLASH ILLUSTRATION

JAKARTA - The Chinese government has responded to a request from the World Health Organization (WHO) asking for access to COVID-19 data in order to understand the origin of the pandemic virus.

"Regarding the search for the origin of COVID-19, China has distributed more data and research findings and has contributed more to the study of the origin of COVID-19 in the world than other countries," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning said at a press conference in Beijing. reported by ANTARA, Tuesday, December 31.

WHO asked China to share data to help understand the origin of COVID-19, five years since the start of the pandemic in the Chinese city of Wuhan. At that time the WHO Office in China recorded a number of cases of "pneumonia" and then about three weeks later, Chinese authorities quarantined the city of 11 million people.

"Since the COVID-19 outbreak five years ago, China has shared information about the outbreak and sequence of viral genomes to WHO and the international community as quickly as possible and has shared control and clinical experiences without hiding data, making a major contribution to global efforts to fight COVID-19," said Mao Ning.

Regarding the search for the origin of COVID-19 in China, said Mao Ning, following the spirit of science, openness and transparency and actively supporting and participating in tracing the origins of the science-based virus and firmly opposing all forms of political manipulation.

"China is the only country that has invited a group of WHO experts more than once to come into the country to conduct a joint study of the origin of the virus. China is also the only country that has organized several events for experts from WHO to share progress in tracing the origins of the virus with WHO," said Mao Ning.

Mao Ning said WHO experts had repeatedly said that China provides full access to all places, people and materials they requested during a study in China and that China's level of openness and transparency exceeded their expectations.

"The international scientific community is now providing more and more clues that lead to the possible origin of COVID-19 to various parts of the world and a global perspective is needed to carry out tracing of origin in many countries and territories," said Mao Ning.

China, said Mao Ning, is willing to work closely with all parties to continue to advance research studies on science-based origins and make active contributions to better protect oneself from infectious diseases in the future.

Regarding respiratory infectious diseases, an official from China's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on December 28, 2024 said the spread of a winter respiratory pathogen this year was less intensive than the peak season of the previous year, but infectious diseases are expected to continue to circulate simultaneously until next spring.

Head of China's CDC National Institute for Disease Control and Prevention Kan Biao said that influenza, rhinovirus, human metapneumovirus, and mycoplasma pneumonia infections are currently most commonly found in hospitals in various provinces in China.

The positive rate of influenza infection is expected to continue to increase, while the rate of rhinovirus infection and cases of pneumonia mycopaplasma infection that usually attack children aged five to 14 years are experiencing a downward trend.

However, the positive rate of infection with the syntactic respiratory virus in infants and children under the age of four is increasing, as well as the level of human metapneumovirus infection in children under the age of 14.

Kan said the spread of COVID-19 and other respiratory diseases is now at a low level. Regarding the spread of the norovirus a stomach infection that can cause vomiting and diarrhea he said that the infection cluster had increased since September 2024.

He acknowledged the spread of the disease was in peak season and would remain at a high level for another two months.