The World Health Organization (WHO) hopes that cooperation with China in the study of the origin of the coronavirus will continue.This was stated on Friday at a briefing by the director of the WHO emergency Situations program, Michael Ryan.
"Productive work is being carried out with China, including on the issue of investigating various scientific considerations regarding the origin of the coronavirus," he said. - Work continues in other countries as well. And we expect that this work will be carried out in the spirit of cooperation."
Ryan also urged not to politicize scientific issues. "There is broad agreement on this issue among all WHO members," the expert stressed. "We would like to assure our colleagues in China that this process is driven by science and that we intend to rely solely on scientific data in order to identify the sources of origin and prevent the appearance of such viruses."
On July 15, WHO Director-General Tedros Adanom Ghebreyesus said that the organization is preparing for the second stage of studying the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus and expects transparency from the Chinese authorities. He noted that the first phase faced certain problems. One of them he called " access to data, especially to data on the beginning of the pandemic." Gebreyesus also did not rule out that the spread of the coronavirus could be the result of an "emergency in the laboratory".
On July 22, the deputy head of the State Committee for Hygiene and Health of the People's Republic of China, Zeng Yixin, said that the plan proposed by the WHO for the second stage of the study of the origin of the coronavirus contains wording that "does not respect science and common sense" and China will not follow it.
