Coronavirus: New WHO team to investigate Wuhan laboratory leak theory

Experts in laboratory safety, biosecurity, genetics and animal disease will look for evidence of how the virus emerged in China.

The World Health Organisation is to restart its investigation into the origins of the coronavirus outbreak and will appoint a new team of experts with a mission to look for further evidence how the virus emerged in China.

The new panel will include experts in laboratory safety, biosecurity and geneticists, as well as animal disease specialists who are experts in how viruses spread to humans, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The team will redouble efforts to establish whether the virus leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan towards the end of 2019 before going on to kill more than 4.7 million people across the globe. China denies the allegation and is demanding that the WHO investigates whether the virus originated in other countries, including the US.

The new WHO team, announced after Washington urged further investigation, comes after President Biden ordered the US intelligence agencies to investigate the “lab leak” theory. The White House had previously accepted China’s explanation that Covid-19 jumped from bats to humans. A US report, published last month, was inconclusive, saying both theories were credible.

Workers inside the P4 laboratory in Wuhan. Picture: AFP.

A WHO spokesman said that the new team’s “priority needs to be data and access in the country where the first reports were identified”.

China has refused to say if the new team will be allowed in to the country to conduct its investigation. The foreign ministry said that China had “co-operated fully” with the previous inquiry, a point disputed by members of the last WHO team.

The earlier WHO investigation, run by 10 international experts who visited Wuhan, recommended that China further scrutinise the earliest suspected cases. It is not known whether Chinese officials carried out this work.

In its final report, the team said the data provided by the Chinese was insufficient to answer the critical questions of when, where and how the virus began spreading. It did conclude, however, that it was “extremely unlikely” that the virus escaped from a lab.

The decision to restart the inquiry is likely to anger Beijing, which is desperate to avoid being blamed for the outbreak. Senior members of the Biden administration have been lobbying the WHO and its director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to begin a new investigation.

At a press conference last month, WHO officials said that they knew Chinese officials had conducted new studies into the genesis of the virus but it is not clear whether the data will be shared with members of the new team.

For its part, China has asked the WHO to look into theories that the virus originated elsewhere. State media has aired suggestions that it began in Italy or at the US military’s bioscience research facility in Maryland.

American officials have warned that time is running out to establish the origins of the pandemic and prevent similar outbreaks in the future.

WHO officials say that evidence such as blood samples from the earliest patients have been thrown away and antibodies in the same people are falling to low levels.

The composition of the new team is likely to depend on how co-operative China might be. Beijing is likely to suggest some of its own scientists join the team, a move that is likely to face resistance in Washington and could undermine the independence of its work.

President Xi told the UN general assembly last week: “China will continue to support and engage in global science-based origins tracing and stands firmly opposed to political manoeuvring in whatever form.”

Biden and Xi discussed the matter during a call before the UN general assembly, according to the Journal.

China fears that the WHO has become close to the White House since Biden rejoined the UN agency after his predecessor, Donald Trump, decided to leave. Tedros, an Ethiopian, is currently trying to secure support for a second five-year term as its director-general.

The Times