China has shared the most data related to COVID-19 with the international community, as well as research results, China's Foreign Ministry said on Friday, after the World Health Organization (WHO) again called for more information and full cooperation from Beijing, Reuters reported, quoted by BTA.
China is also the only country that has repeatedly organized experts to share with WHO the progress in tracking the disease, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said at a regular press conference.
In a statement yesterday, the WHO again asked Beijing to share data and provide full cooperation to help efforts to identify the origin of COVID-19 - a lung infection whose first cases were registered in central China five years ago.
According to WHO data, more than 760 million cases of COVID-19 have been registered worldwide, as well as 6.9 million deaths. In mid-2023, the international organization declared the end of COVID-19 as a public health emergency, but specified that the disease should be a constant reminder of the potential emergence of new viruses that could lead to devastating consequences.
Data from the early days of the Covid pandemic were uploaded by Chinese scientists to an international database in early 2023, several months after China lifted all COVID-19-related restrictions and reopened its borders to the outside world. The data showed that DNA from multiple animal species - including raccoon dogs - was present in environmental samples that tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, suggesting that they are the "most likely vectors" of the disease, according to a team of international researchers, Reuters noted.
In 2021 A WHO-led team spent weeks in and around Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province, where the first cases were found, and said the virus was likely transmitted from bats to humans via another animal, but this has not been proven as the study needed further research. China has repeatedly said that no more visits are needed and that the search for the first cases should be carried out in other countries.
"On the issue of COVID-19 traceability, China has shared the most data and research results and made the greatest contribution to global traceability research," Mao said. "WHO international experts have repeatedly said that during their visit to China, they visited all the places they wanted to visit and met all the people they wanted to see," the spokeswoman added.