Finding the origin of COVID-19 is a moral imperative and all hypotheses must be investigated, said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organization, in the clearest indication yet that the UN agency remains committed to finding out how it originated. this virus Reuters.

The Wall Street Journal recently revealed that a US agency had concluded that the pandemic was likely caused by an inadvertent leak of information from Chinese laboratories, increasing pressure on the WHO to find answers.

Beijing rejected the assessment, which could be released soon after the US House of Representatives voted to declassify it this week.

“Understanding the origins of COVID-19 and exploring all the hypotheses remains: a scientific imperative to help us prevent future epidemics (and) a moral imperative for the sake of the millions of people who have died and those living with LongCOVID,” Tedros Adhanom wrote. Hebreyesus on Twitter.

The message was posted on the social network less than three years after the WHO first used the word “pandemic” to describe the global epidemic of COVID-19.

In 2021, a WHO-led team spent weeks in and around Wuhan, the city where the first human cases were reported, and said in a joint report that the virus likely passed from bats to humans through another animal, but further investigation was needed . needed

China has argued that no further visits are necessary.

The WHO has since established a scientific advisory group on dangerous pathogens, but has yet to reach a conclusion on how the pandemic started, saying there is a lack of important data.