Sharjah24 – Reuters: The United States called on Tuesday for international experts to be allowed to evaluate the source of the coronavirus and the "early days of the outbreak" in a second phase of an investigation into the origins of the coronavirus.
U.S. intelligence agencies are examining reports that researchers at a Chinese virology laboratory were seriously ill in 2019 a month before the first cases of COVID-19 were reported, according to U.S. government sources who cautioned on Monday that there is still no proof the disease originated at the lab.
"Phase 2 of the COVID origins study must be launched with terms of reference that are transparent, science-based, and give international experts the independence to fully assess the source of the virus and the early days of the outbreak," U.S. health secretary Xavier Becerra said in a video message to the annual ministerial meeting of the World Health Organization.
Becerra did not mention China directly, where the first known human cases of COVID-19 emerged in the central city of Wuhan in December 2019.
A WHO spokesman, Tarik Jasarevic, asking about a follow-up mission, told on Monday that the agency was reviewing the recommendations from the report at the technical level.
"The technical teams will prepare a proposal for the next studies that will need to be carried out, and will present that to the Director-General for his consideration," he said, referring to WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Jasarevic, noting Tedros' remarks on March 30, said that further studies would be needed in a range of areas, including on the early detection of cases and clusters, the potential roles of animal markets, transmission via the food chain and the laboratory incident hypothesis.
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