Corona Origin
China calls WHO criticism ‘disrespectful’
The director of the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention: Shen Hongbing. photo
© Mark Schiefelbein/AP/dpa
The head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention has sharply rejected criticism from the World Health Organization (WHO) in the search for the origin of the corona pandemic.
The criticism was “insulting and disrespectful,” Shen Hongbing said at a press conference. China has always “actively shared research results with scientists from all over the world”. Shen also accused the WHO of “slandering China” and politicizing the search for the origin of the virus.
Most recently, Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s highest-ranking Covid-19 expert, used unusually sharp words to warn China’s cooperation in researching the corona virus. Among other things, she criticized in a comment in the renowned US journal “Science” that Chinese scientists had withheld data from virus samples from the metropolis of Wuhan for three years. “The lack of disclosure of data is simply inexcusable,” wrote the epidemiologist.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, China has worried about being blamed for the global outbreak. The government and state media have since pursued a massive disinformation campaign that highlights the possibility that the virus may have come from abroad and not originated in China. A joint commission of inquiry with WHO experts was only able to travel to Wuhan in 2021. The investigation was not continued.
