The World Health Organization has called on China to share information on the origins of the Covid pandemic, five years after it began in the city of Wuhan.
“This is a moral and scientific imperative,” the WHO said in a statement marking what it called a “milestone” anniversary.
“Without transparency, sharing and cooperation among countries, the world cannot adequately prevent and prepare for future epidemics and pandemics,” it added.
Many scientists think that the virus was naturally transmitted from animals to humans, but there are still doubts that it escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan.
China did not respond to the WHO statement on Monday. In the past, he strongly rejected the lab leak theory.
In September, a team of scientists said it was “beyond reasonable doubt”. The covid pandemic started with the sale of infected animals on the marketnot a lab leak.
They came to this conclusion after analyzing hundreds of samples collected from Wuhan in January 2020.
In its statement, the WHO went back to the early days of Covid and traced its evolution from a local phenomenon to a global scourge, leading to worldwide quarantines and the ultimately successful race to develop a vaccine.
“Five years ago, on December 31, 2019, the WHO China Country Office downloaded a press release from the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission from their website about cases of ‘viral pneumonia’ in Wuhan, China,” the organization said.
“In the weeks, months and years that followed, Covid-19 began to shape our lives and our world,” it said.
The WHO said it “immediately went to work” as soon as 2020 dawned. He recalled how its staff activated emergency systems on January 1 and notified the world three days later.
“By 9 and 12 January, WHO published its first set of comprehensive guidelines for countries, and on 13 January we brought together partners to publish a draft of the first laboratory test for Sars-CoV-2,” it added.
The WHO said it wanted to “honour the lives changed and lost, acknowledge those suffering from Covid-19 and long-term Covid, express gratitude to the health workers who have sacrificed so much to care for us and commit to learning from Covid-19 to build healthier tomorrow”.
In May 2023, the WHO declared it Covid-19 is no longer a “global health threat”.
Its chief director dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at the time that at least seven million people died in the pandemic.
But he added that the true figure was “probably” closer to 20 million deaths – almost three times the official estimate.
Since then, the WHO has repeatedly warned against complacency due to the possible emergence of future diseases similar to Covid.
Dr Ghebreyesus said the next pandemic “could come at any moment” and urged the world to be prepared.
