India tacitly asks China to let WHO conduct further probe into Covid-19 origin

India on Friday tacitly asked China to cooperate with the World Health Organization (WHO) and allow it to conduct further investigation into the origin of the Covid-19 virus.

New Delhi joined the growing clamour for a follow-up probe by the WHO, even as Beijing criticised US President Joe Biden’s recent call to the intelligence agencies of the United States to redouble efforts to reach a definitive conclusion about the origin of the SARS-CoV-2, which caused the Covid-19 pandemic and wreaked havoc around the world.

“The follow up of the WHO study on origin of Covid-19 virus and further studies deserve the understanding and cooperation of all,” Arindam Bagchi, spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, said in New Delhi, without directly referring to China.

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The WHO in March this year revealed that its investigators had experienced difficulties in accessing raw data while studying Covid origin in China. This prompted the US and the 13 other nations to issue a joint statement, expressing concern over delay and difficulties experienced by the WHO experts in accessing “complete, original data and samples” while conducting the probe in China.

New Delhi avoided directly calling out for not adequately cooperating with the WHO team that visited Wuhan in central China. The MEA, however, stated on April 1 that India supported the WHO’s expectation that future collaborative studies would include more timely and comprehensive data sharing.

Recent media reports about researchers of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in central China falling sick and undergoing treatment in a hospital in November 2019 renewed speculation about the possibility of the virus originating in the laboratory.

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It was in a market in Wuhan that the first cases of the SARS-CoV-2 infection were reported in December 2019. The virus over the next few months spread around the world and triggered a pandemic.

The Biden Administration of late signalled that it would continue to nudge the WHO to conduct a follow-up probe into the origin of the Covid-19 virus. The US Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra recently said that international experts should be given “the independence to fully assess the source of the virus and the early days of the outbreak”.

China criticized the US call for further probe into the origin of the virus as politically motivated.

“The WHO convened global study on the origin of Covid-19 is an important first step. It stressed the need for next phase studies as also for further data and studies to reach robust conclusions,” Bagchi, the MEA spokesperson, said in New Delhi on Friday.