China denies hiding data on the origin of the coronavirus and asks to investigate in other countries

China on Wednesday rejected any criticism after the publication of the report of the World Health Organization (WHO) on the origin of the coronavirus.

In the middle of the statement, the Asian country denied having withheld data or hindered the work of scientists who traveled in January and February to Wuhan, where the first global outbreak was detected.

At a press conference in Beijing today, the head of the team of Chinese experts that investigated the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, Liang Wannian, he assured that “China provided all available data” and that “it is time to continue studying the origin of the virus in other parts of the world”.

This Tuesday, USA and thirteen other countries expressed concern about the report published by the WHO and stated that the international mission of scientists “was significantly delayed” and that “did not have access to data and samples” from the virus.

The controversy arises since the experts of the WHO They would only have obtained reports that had previously been drawn up by Chinese experts or who were unable to review the original data on which those reports were based, thus preventing them from reaching their own conclusions about the origin and way in which the virus spread, according to US media like The Wall Street Journal.

“There is no basis to accuse China of not sharing its data with the WHO investigators. According to Chinese law, some data cannot be taken out of the country, but we analyze it all together in Wuhan.” Liang said.

The scientist stressed that the collaboration between China and the experts of the WHO it was “transparent” and that the Asian country “mobilized all available resources” to ensure the success of the mission.

“The scientists visited all the sites they asked and saw all the people they asked to see”, he asserted.

Liang also rejected that China press the WHO to delay the publication of the report and explained that both the Chinese experts and those of the international body should “verify each data” before reaching conclusions.

However, the expert praised the report of the WHO because “has reached the best possible conclusions considering the difficulty of this research”.

China calls for research in other countries

China believes that, at least for the moment, his part is already over, and Liang conditioned the visit of a new mission from the WHO to the evolution of research:

“It’s too early to talk about another expert mission here. It will depend on the research recommendations and your specific plans. Studies in other countries and regions will also be necessary”.

Liang indicated that, to progress, you must build “a global database”That includes molecular, genetic, clinical, epidemiological and monitoring sequences of wild animals and environmental conditions.

“We must continue looking for possible early cases throughout the world as well as potential carriers of the virus, and not just bats”, he added.

The report of the WHO presented yesterday did not offer a definitive answer on the origin of the virulent pathogen and its conclusions are summarized in four hypotheses.

The one that is given more credibility is that the new coronavirus reached humans through one or more animals that would have acted as an intermediary species.

The probability that it has jumped directly from the carrier species to the human is less, since in none of the most suspicious has a coronavirus equal or sufficiently similar been found so far.

The report indicates that the Institute of Virology of Wuhan was studying a coronavirus found in bats and very close to SARS-CoV-2, and that the city’s disease control center changed headquarters on December 2, 2019, a time when laboratory work can be disrupted.

However, the report notes that the three laboratories of Wuhan that they studied coronavirus they had high levels of biosafety, that no incidents were reported in that move and that no genome in them was identical to SARS-CoV-2.

All this makes “highly improbable” the theory of the origin of the pandemic in a laboratory, concludes the report, although yesterday the director general of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, considered that this evaluation was not “comprehensive enough“And asked for more studies in this regard to achieve “stronger conclusions”.

The seventeen experts were in China between mid-January and mid-February and visited the Huanan market, in Wuhan, in which wild animals were sold, animal farms that supplied it, as well as laboratories and centers that store information from the first phase of the pandemic.