Officials call for more transparency in WHO-led coronavirus investigation
FORUM Staff
The World Health Organization (WHO) has not disclosed enough information about plans for its investigation into the origins of the coronavirus inside the People’s Republic of China (PRC), U.S. officials said in early November 2020.
“The [terms of reference] were not negotiated in a transparent way with all WHO member states,” Garrett Grigsby, director of the Office of Global Affairs for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said via video conference, referring to the mission’s criteria, according to The Associated Press (AP).
Scientists believe that the virus, known as SARS-CoV-2, emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019. Chinese scientists are researching the virus’s origins and the possibility that it jumped to humans from bats at a market with live animals, according to Reuters. (Pictured: A resident in Wuhan, China, rides past graffiti that pictures nurses testing a patient for coronavirus.)
“Understanding the origins of COVID-19 through a transparent and inclusive investigation is what must be done to meet the mandate,” Grigsby said, according to Reuters and AP.
An advance team of WHO scientists traveled to China in mid-July 2020 to lay groundwork for a wider investigation, which continues to be slowed by mandatory quarantines and pandemic travel restrictions.
Mike Ryan, a top emergency expert at WHO, said agency scientists and their Chinese counterparts recently held their first virtual meeting regarding joint investigations, but he did not provide a timeline for when the teams would deploy together on the ground, according to Reuters. The WHO has commissioned an independent panel to evaluate its management of the global COVID-19 response as the United States and other nations consider whether the United Nations health agency has enough power and financing to stop future pandemics.
“The independent panel will do its best to shed light on what has happened, is happening and why,” said former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, the panel’s chairwoman, according to AP. “We are asking whether WHO has the right mandate, the right powers, the right capacities and the right financing to deliver on pandemic preparedness and response.”
Clark said the group is especially interested in establishing an accurate timeline of the first coronavirus alerts and determining what responses were taken.
In recent weeks, Chinese health officials claimed to have detected the virus on refrigerated and frozen foods from around the world. The Chinese Centers for Disease Control said it isolated active SARS-CoV-2 on packs of imported fish while tracing a recent outbreak in Qingdao to two dock workers, Time magazine reported in November 2020. Elsewhere, health officials remain skeptical over the PRC’s concerns about possible coronavirus transmission through imported food. s
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control says there is “no evidence” suggesting that food is associated with spreading the virus, according to Time, and the WHO says it’s not necessary to disinfect food packaging. In August 2020, New Zealand ruled out a theory than an outbreak was connected to a cold chain storage facility there, Time reported.
