Finding Covid-19’s origins a moral imperative: WHO chief

GENEVA Discovering the origins of Covid-19 is a moral imperative and all hypotheses must be explored, the head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) said in his strongest comments yet that the United Nations body remains committed to finding how the virus arose.

A US agency was reported by the Wall Street Journal to have assessed that the pandemic had likely been caused by an unintended Chinese laboratory leak, raising pressure on the WHO to come up with answers.

Beijing denies the assessment.

Understanding #COVID19s origins and exploring all hypotheses remains: a scientific imperative, to help us prevent future outbreaks (and) a moral imperative, for the sake of the millions of people who died and those who live with #LongCOVID, said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Twitter.

He was writing to mark three years since the WHO first used the word pandemic to describe the global outbreak of Covid-19.

Activists, politicians and academics said in an open letter this weekend that the focus of the anniversary should be on preventing a repeat of the unequal Covid-19 vaccine roll-out, saying this led to at least 1.3 million preventable deaths.

In 2021, a WHO-led team spent weeks in and around Wuhan, China, where the first human cases were reported and said in a joint report that the virus had probably been transmitted from bats to humans through another animal but further research was needed. China has said no more visits are needed.

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