'Research Poisoned By Politics': WHO Complains As Countries Intensify Pressure Over Covid Origins

Earlier this week, US President Biden ordered US intelligence agencies to investigate the origins of the Coronavirus pandemic in China as a way to prevent future pandemics.

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New Delhi: The World Health Organization during a media briefing said that researchers and scientists need space to work and solve to mystery regarding the origins of the Covid-19 spread new coronavirus. WHO said that the politics over the situation is hampering with the investigation. 

The UN body is facing intensified constant pressure to unravel the origins of Covid-19 through a new, more in-depth investigation, but so far there is no timeline for the next stage in the probe.

"We would ask that we separate the science from the politics, and let us get on with finding the answers that we need in a proper, positive atmosphere," WHO emergencies chief Michael Ryan told reporters according to AFP.

"This whole process is being poisoned by politics," he warned further. 

US and the Lab Leak theory

Earlier this week, US President Biden ordered US intelligence agencies to investigate the origins of the Coronavirus pandemic in China as a way to prevent future pandemics. Biden's statement indicates that his administration takes seriously the possibility that it was accidentally leaked from a lab, as well as the prevailing theory that it was transmitted to humans by an animal.

US' top infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci also said he is "not convinced" that Covid-19 developed naturally earlier this month he called for an open investigation into China to unravel the virus' origins.

No timeline for next phase

Aside from the US, European Union countries and a range of others also pressed for clarity on the next steps in the organisation's efforts to solve the mystery. However, the WHO said that it was still waiting to hear from the technical experts for the next move. 

"The technical team will prepare a proposal for the next studies that will need to be carried out and will present that to the director-general," spokeswoman Fadela Chaib was quoted as saying by AFP.

"He will then work with member states about the next steps," she said, acknowledging "there is no timeline".

WHO's China findings

It was only in 2021, almost after a whole year since the pandemic began that WHO send a team of experts to China to investigate the origins of the pandemic. Yet, there was no firm answer as to how the pandemic began, they did however, ranked possibilities. The joint WHO-China inquiry, whose findings were released in March, dismissed as "extremely unlikely" the possibility that the virus had emerged accidentally from a laboratory.

According to the AFP report, other scientists don't necessarily support the lab leak theory, they do agree that a deeper, more scientific look at the theory was needed.

Ryan was further quoted by AFP as saying, "Every country and every entity is free to pursue their own particular theories of origin... It's a free world". He criticized that the chaos surrounding the origins and the WHO role in it was making ti difficult to conduct the research properly. 

"It puts us, as an organisation, frankly in an impossible position to deliver the answers that the world wants," he said.