While the FBI and the US Department of Energy have deemed a laboratory leak to be the cause of the Covid-19 pandemic, the WHO on Friday urged all countries to share their information.
"If a country has information about the origins of the pandemic, it is essential that this information is shared with WHO and the international scientific community," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at his regular press briefing.
It's not about "pointing fingers," he said, but about "advancing our understanding of how this pandemic began, so we can prevent, prepare for, and respond to future epidemics and pandemics."
High-level officials solicited at the United Nations
FBI Director Christopher Wray estimated this week that a laboratory accident in Wuhan was "most likely" the cause of the Covid-19 pandemic, two days after a similar hypothesis put forward by the US Department of Energy.
Asked specifically about this, Maria Van Kerkhove, head of the Covid response at the WHO, explained that the agency had requested information from senior officials of the US Representation to the United Nations in Geneva.
"We have made requests (...) to obtain information on the latest report of the Department of Energy, but also on additional reports from various US agencies," she detailed.
"Right now, we don't have access to those reports or the data that went into these reports," she said. The scientific community believes that it is crucial to know the origins of this scourge to be able to better fight it or even avoid a future pandemic.
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