On COVID-19 origin, White House adviser says need transparent process from China

Washington, May 26: The world needs to get to the bottom of the origins of COVID-19, a senior White House coronavirus adviser has said. He also said that the World Health Organisation and China have to do more to reach the definitive answers in the matter.

"It is our position that we need to get to the bottom of this and we need a completely transparent process from China. We need the WHO (World Health Organization) to assist in that matter. We don't feel like that we have that now," Andy Slavitt, White House adviser said.

We need to get to the bottom of this whatever the answer may be and that is a critical priority for us, he also said.

Dr Anothy Fauci, the Biden administration's top medical adviser said that they strongly feel that the world should continue with the probe and go to the next phase of the probe that the WHO has done. Because we do not know 100 per cent what the origin is, it is imperative that we look and do an investigation, he also added.

The statements come a day after the Wall Street Journal reported that the three researchers at China's Wuhan Institute of Virology had sought hospital care after they fell ill in November 2019, a month after Beijing reported the first patient with COVID-19 like symptoms.

"The US government has reason to believe that several researchers inside the WIV became sick in autumn 2019, before the first identified case of the outbreak, with symptoms consistent with both Covid-19 and common seasonal illnesses," the report read.