WHO Can't Compel China To Divulge More Information On Covid Origins: Top Health Official

Mike Ryan, director of the agency's emergencies programme said, "WHO doesn't have the power to compel anyone in this regard".

Image Source: Reuters

New Delhi: A top official from the World Health Organization while speaking to the press on Monday said that it cannot 'compel' China to give more information about Covid origins. 

However, the official did say that WHO will propose more studies that are needed to understand where the virus emerged.

According to a Reuters report, Mike Ryan, director of the agency's emergencies programme, was asked how WHO will compel China to be more open about Covid origins. 

In the report, Ryan was quoted as saying, "WHO doesn't have the power to compel anyone in this regard. We fully expect cooperation, input and support of all of our member states in that endeavour". 

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

Last month, 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.

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.