“I have written to and spoken with high-level Chinese leaders on multiple occasions as recently as just a few weeks ago… all hypotheses on the origins of the virus remain on the table,” stated WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that the US Energy Department had concluded the pandemic possible arose from a Chinese laboratory leak, an evaluation Beijing denies.

“I wish to be very clear that WHO has not abandoned any plans to identify the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic,” Tedros stated.

The US Energy Department made its judgment with “low confidence” in a labeled intelligence report just lately offered to the White House and key members of Congress, the Journal stated, citing individuals who had learn the intelligence report.

Four different US companies, together with a nationwide intelligence panel, nonetheless assume Covid-19 was possible the results of pure transmission, whereas two are undecided, the Journal reported.

Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical lead on Covid-19, expressed frustration on Twitter on Thursday that the United States had not shared extra info with the WHO on its studies assessing the origin of the virus.

On Friday, she urged nations, establishments and analysis teams which may have any info on the origins of the pandemic to share it with the worldwide neighborhood.

“We don’t completely have the answers to how this pandemic began and it remains absolutely critical that we continue to focus on this,” she stated.

She stated it was essential to check coronaviruses circulating in animals and the way individuals come into contact with these animals.

“Our work continues on this space: looking at studies in humans, looking at studies in animals, looking at studies at the animal human interface, and also looking at potential breaches in biosafety and biosecurity for any of the labs that were working with coronaviruses, particularly where the first cases were detected in Wuhan, China, or elsewhere,” she stated.