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It has been more than a year since the first case of the novel coronavirus was reported in the Chinese city of Wuhan. A year later, the World Health Organisation has warned that we need to be concerned about the surging COVID-19 pandemic.
The global health agency has vowed it would do everything possible to know the animal origin of COVID-19, insisting that the knowledge was vital to prevent further outbreaks. The origin of the virus still remains a mystery and the issue has been highly politicised in the past year. The outgoing Trump administration was harshly critical of WHO’s handling of the crisis, stopped all emergency funds for virus patients, and eventually left the agency. A global response to a COVID-19 vaccine is left in the doldrums and faces a funding shortfall of over $4.5 billion.
Interestingly, a team of Chinese researchers have claimed that the virus originated in India in summer of 2019, much earlier than reported, and jumped from animals to humans from contaminated water. Then it travelled unnoticed to Wuhan where it was first detected. They argue that the virus develops mutations and the ‘original’ virus can be traced to eight other countries.
This shows that there is still a lack of research over the matter. China has been accused of hindering the process and may have influenced the WHO’s terms of an international investigation into the origins of the virus. Research teams have been sent there to identify the first human cases and their source of infection but have remained unsuccessful.
Since then the virus has killed 1.46 million people and infected over 63 million. Economies have been devastated and even powerful nations have been brought to their knees. Health systems have been on the assault for over a year, millions have been unemployed and children have been out of school for much of the year. Any hopes of a vaccine have been doused by costing and distribution issues.
There is still a lack of transparency and insufficient research on the matter. Pharmaceutical companies have rushed to develop a vaccine but there is still a lack of research on the social and economic effects of the virus. There should be nothing to hide and we must know the origin of the virus to prevent such debilitating pandemics in the future.
