Advanced Search

The story appears on

Page A3

May 6, 2020

GET this page in PDF

Free for subscribers

View shopping cart

Related News

Home 禄 Nation

WHO: No proof for Wuhan lab claims

Source: AFP | 00:00 UTC+8 May 6, 2020 | Print Edition

THE World Health Organization said on Monday that Washington had provided no evidence to support “speculative” claims by the US president that the new coronavirus originated in a Chinese lab. 

“We have not received any data or specific evidence from the United States government relating to the purported origin of the virus — so from our perspective, this remains speculative,” WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan told a virtual briefing.

Scientists believe the killer virus jumped from animals to humans.

Top US epidemiologist Anthony Fauci echoed the WHO’s statement in an interview published on Monday evening by National Geographic.

“If you look at the evolution of the virus in bats and what’s out there now, (the scientific evidence) is very, very strongly leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated,” Fauci told the magazine. “Everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that (this virus) evolved in nature and then jumped species,” he said.

US President Donald Trump claims to have proof it started in a Wuhan laboratory. And US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday said “enormous evidence” backed up that claim.

China has vehemently denied suggestions the lab was the source.

“Like any evidence-based organization, we would be very willing to receive any information that purports to the origin of the virus,” Ryan said, stressing that this was a very important piece of public health information for future control. “If that data and evidence is available, then it will be for the United States government to decide whether and when it can be shared, but it is difficult for the WHO to operate in an information vacuum in that regard,” he added.

The UN health agency has repeatedly said the virus clearly appears to have originated naturally from an animal source. WHO expert Maria Van Kerkhove stressed during Monday’s briefing that there were some 15,000 full genome sequences of the novel coronavirus available, and “from all of the evidence that we have seen... this virus is of natural origin.”

Nation
锘

 

Copyright 漏 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.

娌叕缃戝畨澶 31010602000204鍙

Email this to your friend


锘