Probe early virus cases

The World Health Organization said yesterday that a report that Covid-19 had emerged in December in France, sooner than previously thought, was "not surprising", and urged countries to investigate any other early suspicious cases.

The disease later identified as Covid-19 was first reported by Chinese authorities to the WHO on 31 December and was not previously believed to have spread to Europe until January.

"This gives a whole new picture on everything," WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier told a UN briefing in Geneva, referring to the French reports.

"The findings help to better understand the potential virus circulation of Covid-19," he added, saying other possible earlier cases could emerge after retesting samples.

A French hospital which has retested old samples from pneumonia patients discovered that it treated a man who had Covid-19 as early as December 27, nearly a month before the French government confirmed its first cases.

Lindmeier encouraged other countries to check records for pneumonia cases of unspecified origin in late 2019, saying this would give the world a "new and clearer picture" of the outbreak, reports Reuters.

Asked about the origins of the virus in China, Lindmeier stressed that it was "really, really important" to explore this.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo alleges his country has "evidence" that the new coronavirus emerged from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, although scientists have advised the WHO that it is of animal origin.

"That may need further missions or a mission (to China) so we are looking forward to this," Lindmeier said.

WHO's top emergencies expert Dr Mike Ryan said on Monday that the body's chief had raised the issue of the origins of the virus "at the highest level" during a WHO mission to China in January.

He also said Washington had provided no evidence to support "speculative" claims by the US president that the new coronavirus originated in a Chinese lab.

"We have not received any data or specific evidence from the United States government relating to the purported origin of the virus -- so from our perspective, this remains speculative," Ryan told a virtual briefing.

Scientists believe the killer virus jumped from animals to humans, emerging in China late last year, possibly from a market in Wuhan selling exotic animals for meat.

China has vehemently denied suggestions the lab was the source.

Top US epidemiologist Anthony Fauci echoed the WHO's statement in an interview published Monday evening by National Geographic.

"If you look at the evolution of the virus in bats and what's out there now, (the scientific evidence) is very, very strongly leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated," Fauci told the magazine.

"Everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that (this virus) evolved in nature and then jumped species," he said.

"Like any evidence-based organisation, we would be very willing to receive any information that purports to the origin of the virus," Ryan said, stressing that this was "a very important piece of public health information for future control.

"If that data and evidence is available, then it will be for the United States government to decide whether and when it can be shared, but it is difficult for the WHO to operate in an information vacuum in that regard," he added.