GENEVA : The World Health Organization’s top emergency expert said Friday it would be “highly speculative” for the WHO to say the coronavirus did not emerge in China, where it was first identified in a food market in December last year .
China is pushing a narrative through state media that the virus existed abroad before it was discovered in the central city of Wuhan, citing the presence of coronavirus in imported frozen food packaging and scientific articles claiming it had been circulating. in Europe last year.
“I think it is very speculative for us to say that the disease did not arise in China,” Mike Ryan said at a virtual briefing in Geneva after being asked if COVID-19 might have first emerged outside of China.
“It’s clear from a public health perspective that you start your investigations where human cases first emerged,” he added, saying the evidence could lead elsewhere.
He repeated that the WHO intended to send researchers to the Wuhan food market to further investigate the origins of the virus.
The WHO has been accused by the Trump administration of being “China-centric”, accusations it has repeatedly denied.
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