A team of World Health Organization experts investigating the origins of the pandemic on Wednesday visited a research center in Wuhan, China, which focused on several unfounded theories about the coronavirus.
The WHO scientists met with staff members of the center, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which houses a modern laboratory known for its research on coronaviruses.
The institute was scrutinized last year when the Trump administration promoted the unfounded theory that the virus might have leaked from a government laboratory in China. But many senior U.S. officials have said in private that evidence pointing to a laboratory accident is primarily circumstantial.
Most scientists agree that the coronavirus probably originated in the natural world and spread from animals to humans. Peter Daszak, one of the experts in the WTO team, described the conversation at the Wuhan Institute on Wednesday as frank. ‘Key questions asked and answered’ he wrote on Twitter, without providing details.
One of the people the WHO team met was Shi Zhengli, known as China’s ‘Bat Woman’ for her study on coronaviruses found in bats. In June, dr. Shi initially expressed fears that the virus could leak out of the lab, according to an interview with Scientific American. Later investigations showed that none of the gene sequences corresponded to the viruses studied by staff members.
Separately, China announced Wednesday that it will supply 10 million Covid-19 vaccines to Covax, a global body set up to promote equitable access to coronavirus vaccinations.
The decision is “another important measure taken by China to promote the equitable distribution of vaccines,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin.
He also said the World Health Organization had begun reviewing the emergency vaccine. It was unclear after which vaccinations Mr. Cheek refers. Two vaccines – manufactured by the Chinese companies Sinovac and Sinopharm – have been approved for use in China.