- An interim report summarizing the WHO investigation into the origin of the virus has been deleted.
- The WHO says that this summary will be published ‘in the coming weeks’ with the full report.
- This comes as the independence of the investigation of Chinese influence comes under scrutiny.
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An interim report summarizing an investigation by the World Health Organization into the origin of the coronavirus has been deleted, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
The director-general of the WG, dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said on February 12 that a summary of the results would appear within a few weeks, the Journal said.
But the plan was scrapped, Peter Ben Embarek, chief scientist of the investigation team, told the Journal.
The results of the WTO-China Joint study have not yet been made public, the WTO confirmed in an email to Insider on Friday.
Instead, “the team wants to release the full report at the same time as the summary so that all information is available to the public,” said Tarik Jašarević.
This news comes because the independence of the team conducting the investigation has come under fire.
In a letter published on Thursday, 26 scientists unrelated to the WTO team said that ‘structural constraints’ in the operation of the team are a complete investigation into the origins of the ‘anything but impossible’ pandemic. make.
The scientists said that half of the team consists of ‘Chinese citizens whose scientific independence can be restricted’.
The investigation should rely on ‘information that the Chinese authorities prefer to share with them’, the scientists said in the letter.
The WHO team arrived in Wuhan in January to investigate the origin of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. It was more than a year after the outbreak began.
After a month-long investigation, the team presented its earlier conclusions to journalists, saying they had ruled out a laboratory origin for the virus.
After the press conference, one of the scientists in the team said that China refused to disclose the raw data to the WTO team, making it more difficult to assess the quality of the information.
In response to the report, the White House said on February 13 that it was “deeply concerned” about the way the early findings were communicated, and asked China to release the data from the earliest days of the outbreak.
“It is imperative that this report is independent, with expert findings without intervention or change by the Chinese government,” the statement said.
The WHO said in an email to Insider that the full report “is expected in the coming weeks”.