Key Sentence:
- The World Health Organization (WHO) says the new working group could be the last chance to discover the origins of Covid-19.
- He has nominated 26 experts for the Scientific Advisory Group on the Origins of New Pathogens (Sago) panel.
More than a year also a half since the virus was discovered in the Chinese city of Wuhan. How it first emerged remains unanswered. The team will see if the virus leaked from animals to humans at the Wuhan market or leaked in a laboratory accident. China emphatically refutes the second theory.
In February, the WHO team tasked with investigating the origins of covid flew to China and concluded this the virus may have originated in bats, but more work is needed. The team called the laboratory leak theory “highly unlikely.”
But recently, Director-General of WHO Dr. Tedros Adhanom Gebreesus said the investigation was hamper by a lack of data and transparency from China. The proposed Sago Group members include six experts who visited China as part of the previous team.
In addition to the coronavirus, Sago will investigate the origins of other high-risk pathogens. “Understanding where new pathogens come from is important to prevent future outbreaks,” said Dr. Tedros. In a joint editorial in Science magazine, Dr. Tedros and other WHO officials said: “a laboratory accident cannot be ruled out.”
Why is the laboratory leakage theory take seriously
Nearly two years after the pandemic began, we still don’t know how and when the deadly Sars-Cov-2 virus emerged. Research on new viruses has always been very complex. But scientists have pinpointed the source of two previous coronavirus outbreaks – both from animals.
However, there are still questions about a possible accident at the laboratory in Wuhan that examined the coronavirus and stored thousands of bat samples. China vehemently denies this. The WHO says China has not shared critical data from the early days of the pandemic. We hope that this new panel of Sago, with experts from 26 different countries. Can overcome this impasse and finally get the much-needed answer so that the world can better prepare for future outbreaks.