China on Thursday rejected a plan by the World Health Organization (WHO) for another probe into the origins of coronavirus, including a hypothesis that the disease could have started from a Chinese laboratory.
The UN health agency had earlier this month proposed an investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 including an audit of laboratories and markets in the Chinese city of Wuhan while calling for transparency from authorities in the Asian nation.
But the vice minister of the National Health Commission (NHC), Zeng Yixin, told reporters that China will not allow such a probe.
“We will not accept such an origins-tracing plan as it, in some aspects, disregards common sense and defies science,” he said.
He maintained that Chinese authorities could not share some data publicly due to privacy issues.
“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 insisted.
