Reject US-led politicization
On the next phase of origins study, the WHO said recently that member states agreed that the origins tracing should not be politicized and the WHO is having positive consultations with a large number of states, including China.
Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO Health Emergencies Program, said at a press conference on Friday that the next stage origins study is building on the report of the Phase-I mission, in which many studies were proposed to go forward.
He said Chinese colleagues are implementing some of the studies raised in the report, and "we look forward to updates from colleagues from China and we expect to continue in China and a number of countries from around the world."
The Chinese health authority rejected WHO's Phase-II COVID-19 origins study in mid-July, calling it lacking respect to common sense and being arrogant to science amid rising politicized moves of the US government on the matter, as the WHO's plan was proposed when the US-led West intensified the politics-driven conspiracy about a "lab leak" theory and exerted political pressure on international scientists to give up their scientific position on the origins issue.
"We want to reassure colleagues in China that the process is and has always been driven by science," Ryan said, noting that everybody is calling for this.
There's widespread agreement among all our member states, let's not politicize the process, Ryan noted.
Questions linger over US COVID-19 origin tracing
