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 The WHO this month proposed a second phase of studies into the
origins of the coronavirus in China, including audits of
laboratories and markets in the city of Wuhan, calling for
transparency from authorities.
"We will not accept such an origins-tracing plan as it, in some
aspects, disregards common sense and defies science," Zeng Yixin,
vice minister of the National Health Commission (NHC), told
reporters.
Zeng said he was taken aback when he first read the WHO plan because
it lists the hypothesis that a Chinese violation of laboratory
protocols had caused the virus to leak during research.
The head of the WHO said earlier in July that investigations into
the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic in China were being hampered by
the lack of raw data on the first days of spread there.
Zeng reiterated China's position that some data could not be
completely shared due to privacy concerns.
"We hope the WHO would seriously review the considerations and
suggestions made by Chinese experts and truly treat the origin
tracing of the COVID-19 virus as a scientific matter, and get rid of
political interference," Zeng said.
China opposed politicising the study, he said.
The origin of the virus remains contested among experts.
The first known cases emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan
in December 2019. The virus was believed to have jumped to humans
from animals being sold for food at a city market.
In May, U.S. President Joe Biden ordered aides to find answers to
questions over the origin saying that U.S. intelligence agencies
were pursuing rival theories potentially including the possibility
of a laboratory accident in China.
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 Zeng, along with other
officials and Chinese experts at the news
conference, urged the WHO to expand
origin-tracing efforts beyond China to other
countries.
"We believe a lab leak is extremely unlikely and
it is not necessary to invest more energy and
efforts in this regard," said Liang Wannian, the
Chinese team leader on the WHO joint expert
team. More animal studies should be conducted,
in particular in countries with bat populations,
he said. However, Liang said the
lab leak hypothesis could not be entirely discounted but suggested
that if evidence warranted, other countries could look into the
possibility it leaked from their labs.
One key part of the lab leak theory has centred on the Wuhan
Institute of Virology's (WIV) decision to take offline its gene
sequence and sample databases in 2019.
When asked about this decision, Yuan Zhiming, professor at WIV and
the director of its National Biosafety Laboratory, told reporters
that at present the databases were only shared internally due to
cyber attack concerns.
(Reporting by Gabriel Crossley and Stella Qiu; Editing by Shri
Navaratnam, Robert Birsel and Ana Nicolaci da Costa)
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