WHO Team: Search for Coronavirus Origins at a Standstill

By Robert Preidt and Robin Foster
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, Aug. 26, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- The hunt for the root of the caller coronavirus is astatine an impasse and the model of accidental to place the virus' origins is "closing fast," a World Health Organization-appointed squad of experts said Wednesday.

The probe is astatine a "critical juncture" that requires urgent collaboration, but Chinese officials stay reluctant to stock immoderate earthy information owed to what they accidental are concerns astir diligent confidentiality, the squad wrote successful a commentary published Wednesday successful the diary Nature.

"The model of accidental for conducting this important enquiry is closing fast: immoderate hold volition render immoderate of the studies biologically impossible," the radical of planetary scientists wrote.

"Antibodies wane, truthful collecting further samples and investigating radical who mightiness person been exposed earlier December 2019 volition output diminishing returns," they noted.

China said Wednesday that officials should "concentrate connected different imaginable avenues that whitethorn assistance hint the origin" of COVID-19 and suggested different countries should besides beryllium studied, the Associated Press reported. The archetypal quality cases of COVID-19 were detected successful Wuhan, China, successful December 2019.

Tracking down the root of the coronavirus has go a sticking constituent betwixt the United States and China, with expanding numbers of American experts calling for investigations of the 2 Wuhan laboratories adjacent to the seafood marketplace wherever the archetypal cases were reported, the AP said. China has since rejected that thought and branded it "scapegoating."

The WHO squad traveled to Wuhan earlier this twelvemonth and successful March published an investigation that concluded the microorganism apt jumped from humans to animals, and said the likelihood that the microorganism escaped from a Chinese laboratory was "extremely unlikely," the AP reported.

In related news, a U.S. quality reappraisal ordered by President Joe Biden failed to supply immoderate steadfast conclusions astir the root of the virus, according to the Washington Post.

More information

Visit the WHO for much connected the pandemic.

SOURCE: Associated Press