The WHO has denied giving up efforts to trace the origin of COVID-19

A team of WHO experts investigated the source of the coronavirus in China in January-February 2021, more than a year after the first cases were reported in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, and made a preliminary conclusion that the virus most likely originated in animals, though they have yet to determine how and when the initial transmission occurred. They also thought it highly unlikely that the virus could have emerged from a laboratory in Wuhan.

In June 2021, the World Health Organization released the first report of the organization’s new source agency. The report said the organization’s latest investigation into the origins of COVID-19 was inconclusive because of a lack of data from China. The report says the laboratory leak theory needs further investigation.

This is considered the end of the first phase of WHO’s efforts to trace the origin of the virus.

Later, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus had said it was still necessary to investigate the possibility that the virus had leaked from a laboratory. He said at the time that experts investigating the source of the virus would begin a follow-up effort, known as the second phase of the COVID-19 traceability effort.

But almost two years later, the second phase of the effort has been stalled by China’s refusal to provide critical information.

The WHO’s Van Kerkerkhove denied, however, that he had told Nature that “there is no Phase 2” or that the WHO had quietly shelved Phase 2 efforts.

“I think we need to make it very clear that WHO has not given up on the origin of the virus,” she said at a press conference Wednesday. We have not and will not do that.”

However, van Kerkerkhove acknowledged that the WHO is still seeking cooperation from China. “The more time passes, the harder it is to find out exactly what happened in the early stages of the outbreak,” she said.

“China always supports and participates in global scientific tracing, and resolutely opposes any form of political manipulation,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said Wednesday in response to a question at a regular press briefing.

The Republican-led House of Representatives on Monday formally launched an investigation into the origins of COVID-19, sending a series of letters to current and former officials in the Biden administration seeking documents and testimony.

“This investigation must begin with how and where this virus came from, so we can try to predict, prepare for, or prevent its recurrence,” Representative Brad Wenstrup, chairman of the House Coronavirus Pandemic subcommittee, said in a statement.

According to the World Health Organization’s website, as of Wednesday, the number of deaths from COVID-19 in the United States exceeded 1.1 million and the global death toll was nearly 6.9 million.