A medical worker collects swab samples from residents during a door-to-door COVID-19 test in Zhengzhou, central China’s Henan province. (file photo)
COVID-19 Origin: The world will never know the origin of COVID-19, the virus that has wreaked havoc across the globe killing 6,784,392 people (as per Worldometer data till the filing of this report), because the World Health Organization (WHO) WHO) has reportedly quietly suspended the investigation.
According to Nature, the WHO has abandoned its planned second phase of testing, citing challenges in conducting important studies in China.
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researchers disappointed
“There is no phase two,” Nature quotes Maria Van Kerkhove, an epidemiologist at the WHO in Geneva, Switzerland. “Its politics around the world has really hindered progress in understanding its origins,” he said.
Underlining that ‘their hands are really tied’, Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada, said it was difficult to continue with the planned study without access to China.
Research on the root cause of the coronavirus outbreak was important as it could help scientists prepare better to deal with any such outbreak in future.
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The WHO sent a team of international experts in January 2021 to the Chinese city of Wuhan, where COVID-19 was first detected. In March that year, the team released a report outlining four possible scenarios for the spread of the virus. The most likely reason is that SARS-CoV2 spread from bats to people through an intermediate species.
The first phase of the investigation was designed to prepare the ground for a second phase zeroing in on the exact cause of the spread in China and other parts of the world. With the Phase II investigation now dismissed, the origin of COVID-19 is unlikely to be uncovered, at least for now.