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October 19, 2021

Anna Murray 

World Health Organization (WHO) announced to form an advisory group to figure out reasons to cause COVID-19 and to prepare for future pandemic. This is might be the last chance to find out the origin of the virus. WHO also urged China to provide early cases for study.

WHO’s new group is the Scientific Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO). Members of SAGO will select from more than 700 international applications. Their major tasks are to figure out the reasons that cause this pandemic to last for more than 18 months. WHO officials stated that it was important to understand the origin of virus. Now, it is meaningless to blame for any particular reasons to cause this pandemic. It is essential for SAGO to puzzle out reasons and to prepare for any potential viruses to wreak the whole world. 

However, China is not a friendly partner to cooperate with. In December 2019, the first human case of COVID-19 reported in Wuhan, China. China initially refused experts’ request to find out the origin of the virus and always disproved assumptions that the virus was leaked out from the lab.

Maria van Kerkhove, WHO technical lead on COVID-19, suggested that dozens of data were needed. She later claimed that experts needed sufficient data to study how the virus transmitted from animals to humans. All the reports related to the residents in Wuhan are critical to understand the origin of this virus. “This is our last and best chance to understand this virus,” said Mie Ryan, WHO’s top emergency expert.