GENEVA, Switzerland — The World Health Organization called Friday for experts to advise on the scientific steps needed when facing new dangerous pathogens with the potential to spark pandemics like COVID-19 The UN health agency launched a call for nominations of experts across a wide range of fields, including virology, veterinary medicine and laboratory safety and security, to join its new permanent International Scientific Advisory Group for Origins of Novel Pathogens, or SAGO.
“It is a long-term initiative to support studies into the origins of any and all future emerging pathogens,” he said, pointing out that the virus behind the Covid pandemic was only the latest high-threat pathogen to emerge, following the likes of SARS, MERS, Ebola and Marburg.The first phase of the Covid origins probe saw a team of international experts go to Wuhan earlier this year and produce a report with their Chinese counterparts that drew no firm conclusions.
A WHO call last month for the investigation’s second stage to include audits of the Wuhan labs infuriated Beijing, which has also rejected as political the agency’s call for raw data from the earliest Covid cases.