Five Years On: WHO Urges China To Shed Light On COVID-19 Origins

The World Health Organization (WHO) has called on China to share critical data to uncover the origins of COVID-19, five years after the pandemic began in the city of Wuhan.

On December 31, 2019, the WHO’s China office reported a cluster of “pneumonia” cases in a statement from Wuhan health authorities. Just over three weeks later, the city of 11 million was locked down. Despite these measures, the coronavirus had already spread beyond China’s borders, igniting a global health crisis.

While many countries have moved on from the era of lockdowns and restrictions, the origins of the virus remain a contentious and unresolved issue. The pandemic has claimed at least seven million lives, overwhelmed healthcare systems, and disrupted the global economy. According to experts, China’s lack of transparency has hindered the search for answers.

“We continue to call on China to share data and provide access to understand the origins of COVID-19. This is a moral and scientific imperative,” the WHO stated on Monday. “Without transparency, sharing, and cooperation among countries, the world cannot adequately prevent and prepare for future epidemics and pandemics.”

The question of how the pandemic started has been the subject of rigorous scientific investigation and heated political debate. Opinions remain divided on whether the virus emerged from a natural animal spillover or a lab leak. Many scientists believe it originated in the wild, jumping from infected animals to humans via a wet market in Wuhan. However, they have yet to identify the intermediate host. Meanwhile, the lab-leak theory, once dismissed as a conspiracy, continues to gain traction among some researchers.

The search for the virus’s origins has been fraught with controversy, fueling geopolitical tensions. The United States and other Western nations have accused China of withholding access to crucial data, a claim Beijing has repeatedly denied. WHO officials have also criticized China’s tight control over data, with one calling the lack of disclosure “simply inexcusable” in 2023.

In response, Chinese disease control officials have maintained that they provided all available information to the WHO, denying accusations of withholding cases, samples, or testing results. Despite this, the WHO has long sought access to early test results and raw data collected during the pandemic’s early days.

It wasn’t until 2023, three years into the pandemic, that the WHO gained limited access to genetic data gathered in early 2020 at Wuhan’s Huanan Seafood Market. This data, uploaded briefly to the data-sharing site GISAID, was removed shortly after but had already been downloaded by researchers. A subsequent analysis, published in the journal Cell, found evidence of coronavirus-susceptible animals and the virus itself in a specific market section. However, the study did not confirm whether the animals were infected.

Reflecting on the initial outbreak, the WHO highlighted its December 31, 2019 announcement of viral pneumonia cases in Wuhan. “In the weeks, months, and years that followed, COVID-19 came to shape our lives and our world,” the organization stated. “As we mark this milestone, let’s honor the lives changed and lost, recognize those suffering from COVID-19 and long COVID, express gratitude to health workers, and commit to learning from COVID-19 to build a healthier tomorrow.”

The call for greater transparency underscores the need for international collaboration to prevent future pandemics. Without a clear understanding of COVID-19’s origins, the world risks repeating the mistakes of the past.