'US will continue working with partners to press China on COVID origin probe': Joe Biden

US President Joe Biden has asserted that the country would continue to work with international partners to press China to share information and co-operate with the World Health Organisation (WHO) on the COVID origin probe. His statement comes after the results of the US intelligence report on the origins of the Coronavirus came out to be inconclusive. 

"The United States will continue working with like-minded partners around the world to press the PRC to fully share information and to cooperate with the World Health Organization's Phase II evidence-based, expert-led determination into the origins of COVID-19 - including by providing access to all relevant data and evidence," Joe Biden said in a statement.

US report on COVID origin inconclusive

In May, Joe Biden had ordered an independent investigation into virus origins, partially dismissing lab leak claims of his predecessor. But 90 days later, the officials failed to derive a definitive conclusion on whether the pathogen jumped from bats to humans or whether experts synthetically manufactured it at a laboratory. On August 25, the classified US intelligence report on the origin of coronavirus came out to be inconclusive, in part due to China’s blockage on foreign probes including that of the WHO, a report by Washington Post stated.

WHO announces Phase-2 of COVID origin probe

On August 13, the WHO said that it will be creating a new advisory group to study the pathogens with pandemic potential and also understand the COVID-19 origin. The WHO had in July proposed the second phase of the study by auditing China's laboratories and markets in the city. However, this proposal was rejected by Beijing. The announcement of the 2nd phase of the probe also drew in protests from China. The country hit out at the global health body calling the probe into the lab-leak theory 'unacceptable and inappropriate.' 

The origins of COVID-19 which was first detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019, remains a broadly debated topic among scientists and delegates who deem the likelihood of Wuhan lab leak theory more than something that is dismissable. 

(With Agency Inputs)