Beijing: China on Thursday rejected the World Health Organization's (WHO) plan for a Phase II study to find out the origin of the Coronavirus. China has expressed astonishment at WHO's proposal. China's National Health Commission (NHC) Vice President Zeng Yishin said on Thursday that China opposes politicizing the study of the origin of the virus.


China's sharp reaction came after a statement from WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. In a statement last week, he claimed that it was too early to rule out a possible link between the COVID-19 pandemic and a lab leak.


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The WHO had proposed the Second phase of the COVID-19 origin study to China, which also included an inspection of the Wuhan Institute of Virology as well as the Wuhan Wet Market. In addition to this, WHO has demanded a higher amount of transparency and support from China while the investigation is being done.  


China called the proposal a blatant disregard of scientific facts
Geng said that China cannot accept the current version of the WHO plan because it has been politically manipulated and that it disregards scientific facts. According to Chinese state media, Zeng claimed that the second phase of the proposed study hypothesised that China had violated lab rules and leaked the virus as a research object. He said that he was quite surprised to read the proposal.


Zeng advised that "WHO should carefully consider the advice of Chinese scientists. The origin of the COVID-19 virus should be investigated as a scientific question free from political interference and there should also be a consecutive and unbiased investigation of the origin of the virus in different countries."


China has been denying lab leak theory
China has been strongly opposed to the international opinion that the virus could have originated from a Wuhan-based laboratory. China has been denying this theory. The first cases of coronavirus were identified in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019. Hundreds of thousands of people have lost their lives due to the pandemic and millions have been infected.  The global economy has also come to a standstill due to the pandemic.