‘We Did Not Received ‘Any Data or Specific Evidence from the US Government Relating to Origin of the Virus’: WHO

Some 7.4 billion euros was pledged today for research and development for vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics, as leaders from 40 countries all over the world came together to support the ACT Accelerator through the COVID-19 Global Response International Pledging Event, hosted by the European Commission, announced WHO’s chief Tedros Ghebreyesus.

“This was a powerful and inspiring demonstration of global solidarity,” Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Ghebreyesus said at press briefing in Geneva, following the event.

He also said “recent advances in science are enabling the world to move at incredible speed to develop these tools. But the true measure of success will not only be how fast we can develop safe and effective tools – it will be how equally we can distribute them.”

In the wake of easing lockdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in several hard-hit countries, Michael Ryan Executive Director of the WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme said ”as countries open up their economies and open up the societies, and as they look at different gatherings, be their religious or social gatherings that occur, they’ve got to calibrate the risks associated with those gatherings, which are based on how much virus is circulating in the area, so what is the absolute risk of exposure, and then what are the increased risks of being exposed in an environment where there are a number of people who cannot maintain physical distance or potentially maintain hygiene, or other measures.”

Dr Ryan also sought to reassure the public regarding contact-tracing methodology.

“Contact tracing and case finding is not about surveillance or interrupting people’s lives. It’s about trying to identify those individuals who are sick and in trying to ensure that those sick individuals are tested and cared for, and that anyone who is in contact with them is monitored and then subsequently tested and cared for if needed. In doing that, we reduce their, role in spreading the disease, to others,” he said.

Also speaking at the briefing, Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, Technical lead COVID-19 of the WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme, said” what’s really important is for us to understand the zoonotic source, what we call the animal source. This is a coronavirus and coronaviruses circulate in bats. So, there’s an ancestral link to bats, and that is something that we know based on the genetic sequences of this virus and other Coronaviruses that circulate globally. So, we know that that’s our ancestral link. What we really need to understand is the intermediate host, the animal that was infected by bats, and that infected people, in some of these early, in the earliest cases. And that’s a very important piece to understand from a public health perspective so that we could prevent that from happening again.”

WHO did not received “any data or specific evidence from the US government relating to the purported origin of the virus,” said Dr Ryan. “From our perspective, this remains speculative. And, like any evidence-based organization, we would be very willing to receive any information that reports to the origin of the virus.”

He also said that “the origin of the virus “is a very important piece of public health information” but that it is up to the United States government “to decide whether and when it can be shared.”

Taking part in the briefing, Steven Solomon, WHO’s Principal Legal Officer said: “So did Taiwan warn WHO 31 December 2019? The answer is no, they didn’t. They did send an email, but that email was not a warning. It was a request for more information on cases of atypical pneumonia reported by news sources. They sent that request through the IHR system that Taiwan, China and all IHR’s focal points are part of.”

As for Taiwan’s involvement at the this year’s World Health Assembly, scheduled to start on 18 May, Solomon said “the involvement, if any of Taiwanese observers, in that assembly is a question for the 194 governments of WHO, this is not something that, WHO secretariat has authority to decide.”

–WHO

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