More than two years after the outbreak of the corona pandemic, it has still not been finally clarified where the virus originated. Now the new expert council of the WHO is also calling for the laboratory possibility to be examined.
According to a new expert council, in the search for the origin of the Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus, the possibility of escaping from a laboratory must also be examined.
This was recommended by the independent expert council (SAGO) set up by the World Health Organization (WHO) in October 2021 in a first preliminary report. Research on corona viruses is being carried out in Wuhan in China, where the first Sars-CoV-2 cases appeared at the end of 2019. The necessary investigations include an “assessment of potential scenarios in which a failure of the biosecurity procedures has led to a possible laboratory-related infection with the investigated pathogen,” says the report.
However, three members of the almost 30-strong committee did not want to support this recommendation: The scientists from China, Russia and Brazil recorded their rejection in a footnote of the SAGO report. China rejects the theory that the virus could have originated in a Chinese laboratory. Beijing rejects the arrival of another international group of experts to search for the origin of the virus.
