-Urges new WHO group on COVID origin-tracing to uphold science, resist being used as political tool against Beijing
BEIJING: Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, along with some scientists, on Thursday urged a new WHO group on coronavirus origins to uphold the spirit of science, unbiased attitude, a global perspective, and warned it against being used as a political tool after the world health body on Wednesday nominated 26 experts to form the new team to investigate the virus origins.
The WHO published a list of the proposed scientists from various countries for the Scientific Advisory Group on the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO). Chinese scientist Yungui Yang of the Beijing Institute of Genomics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences is the only Chinese scientist included in the team.
Several scientists from the list told the Global Times that there will be two weeks for public consultation before anything is finalized and formalized. When asked to comment on SAGO, Zhao Lijian, spokesperson of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said that China will continue to support and participate in international coronavirus origins -tracing, yet opposes any form of political manipulation on the issue.
He also urged all relevant parties to hold the China-WHO joint research on coronavirus origins as the base reference, and make positive contributions to the task.
He added that China hopes the WHO Secretariat, SAGO and all other relevant bodies will uphold an objective and scientific attitude, and insist on a global perspective on the basis of the WHO first-phase coronavirus origins research, and make positive contribution to global coronavirus origins probe and fighting the pandemic.
After SAGO was announced, BBC said it “may be the last chance to find the virus origins,” and that the “team will consider if the virus jumped from animals to humans in Wuhan markets or leaked in a lab accident.”
–The Daily Mail-Global Times news exchange item
