Beijing lashes out at WHO, defends claim on Covid origin

Beijing, April 8

Chinese health officials defended their search for the source of the Covid virus and lashed out Saturday at the World Health Organisation after its leader said Beijing should have shared genetic information earlier.

The WHO comments were “offensive and disrespectful,” said the director of the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Shen Hongbing. He accused the WHO of “attempting to smear China” and said it should avoid helping others “politicise Covid.”

The global health body’s director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said on March 17 that newly disclosed genetic material gathered in Wuhan, where the first cases were detected in late 2019, “should have been shared three years ago”. “As a responsible country, we have always shared research results with scientists from around the world,” Shen said. — AP