An Australian television news program said earlier that at least three members of the World health Organization’s Joint Expert Group on the Tracing of New Coronaviruses had unclear ties to Chinese authorities, questioning the impartiality of the organization’s report on the origin of new coronaviruses. But one of those questioned, Dutch virologist Marion Koopmans, denounced the report as a conspiracy theory.
On Monday (15), the head of the WHO panel of experts said that the WHO panel has reached a consensus on a summary report on the traceability of the virus in Wuhan, China, and the report will be completed in the next few days. According to a report today by EastNet, the Australian media alleged that the 3 WHO experts had ties to China and questioned the impartiality of the investigation.
The Australian television news program said in a report on Sunday (14) that the expert member, WHO Food safety and animal disease expert Ang Barre, was awarded the “Spirit of Science Award” by the Chinese Society for Food Science and Technology and the International Union of Food Science and Technology in 2017. Peter Daszak, a WHO pathogen consultant and president of the U.S. nonprofit Ecological Health Alliance, has a long history of collaboration with Shi Zhengli, a researcher at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, on bat research. Koopmans was a scientific adviser to the Guangdong CDC, and his biography can still be found on the official website of the Guangdong CDC. The Australian media report argues that independent investigators are needed to trace the origin of the virus, “not scientists who are considered unproblematic by the Chinese government.”
According to the report, Dutch virologist Koopmans later tweeted that the report that she was a scientific adviser to the Guangdong CDC and therefore “someone who works for the Chinese government” was a “new conspiracy theory. The report said that in addition to China, she also works for the European Union and U.S. government agencies.
Daszczak later criticized the report as “out of context” after the US media quoted WHO experts as saying that China had refused to provide the organization with raw data on early cases of Newcastle pneumonia. He said WHO experts in Wuhan obtained an analysis by Chinese scientists of a 500-point sample from the South China Seafood Market, where Chinese experts tried to catch bats in the market’s ventilation system, and also caught cats, rats, weasels and snakes for sampling. He said the market has 10 stalls selling wild animals from Yunnan, Guangdong and Guangxi, including bats and pangolins. In those animals, viruses close to the new coronavirus were found. WHO experts believe that the new coronavirus should originate from bats in Southeast Asia or southern China, and then spread to wildlife farms in China.
Recent Comments