CNN \u2014 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The World Health Organization has urged China to share data to help understand the origins of Covid-19, five years on from the start of the pandemic in the Chinese city of Wuhan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On December 31, 2019, the WHO\u2019s China office noted a cluster of \u201cpneumonia\u201d cases in a statement from health authorities in Wuhan. More than three weeks later, Chinese authorities locked down<\/a> the city of 11 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fears of a rapidly spreading virus gripped the nation, but \u2013 as authorities would later learn – the coronavirus had already spread far beyond China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While much of the world has moved on from the pandemic lockdowns and restrictions, many questions remain about the source of a virus that killed at least seven million people, crippled health care systems and upended the global economy. And many experts say China\u2019s opacity has made finding answers to the pandemic\u2019s origins harder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe continue to call on China to share data and access so we can understand the origins of COVID-19. This is a moral and scientific imperative,\u201d the WHO said in a statement<\/a> on Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWithout transparency, sharing, and cooperation among countries, the world cannot adequately prevent and prepare for future epidemics and pandemics.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n China\u2019s Foreign Ministry defended the country\u2019s handling of Covid-19 data at a regular news conference Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOn the issue of Covid-19 origin tracing, China has always adhered to the spirit of science, openness and transparency, actively supported and participated in global scientific tracing, and resolutely opposed any form of political manipulation,\u201d said Mao Ning, a spokesperson for the ministry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cChina has shared the most data and research results on the issue of Covid-19 origin tracing, and has made the greatest contribution to global tracing research,\u201d Mao added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How the pandemic started has been a subject of intense scientific scrutiny as well as heated political debates, with opinions divided primarily over whether it originated from a natural animal spillover or a lab leak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many scientists believe the virus originated in the wild, before it jumped from infected animals to humans and spread through a wet market in Wuhan, though they haven\u2019t been able to identify the intermediate host.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Suspicions that the coronavirus was leaked from a laboratory near the market, which was first dismissed as a conspiracy theory, have persisted and been endorsed by some researchers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The search for the origins of the virus has been hugely controversial from the onset and a key source of political tension. The United States and other Western countries have repeatedly accused China of withholding access to original and complete data \u2013 which Beijing has vehemently denied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n WHO officials have also criticized<\/a> China\u2019s tight control of data access, with one official calling its lack of data disclosure \u201csimply inexcusable<\/a>\u201d in 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n