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Advisors to the World Health Organization (WHO) on Saturday urged China to release any information related to the origin of the Covid19 pandemic, after new findings were briefly shared in an international pathogentracking database.
New sequences of the SARSCoV2 virus, along with additional genomic data based on samples collected at a live animal market in Wuhan, China, in 2020 were briefly uploaded to the GISAID database by Chinese scientists earlier this year, allowing this to be seen by researchers from other countries, in line with the WHO Scientific Advisory Group on the Origins of New Pathogens (SAGO) statement.
The sequences suggested that raccoon dogs were present at the market and may also have been infected with the coronavirus, providing a new clue in the chain of transmission that eventually reached humans.
Access to the information was later restricted by the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “apparently to allow for further data updates.”
WHO officials discussed the matter with Chinese colleagues, who said the new data should be used to update a 2022 preprint study.
WHO officials say this information, while inconclusive, is a new lead in the investigation of the origins of COVID and should have been shared immediately.
“These data do not provide a definitive answer as to how the pandemic began, but all data are important to bring us closer to that answer,” said WHO DirectorGeneral Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Friday.
“This data should have and should have been shared three years ago.”
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