International
China defends handling of COVID-19 outbreak, backs WHO-led probe
The President of China, Xi Jinping says Beijing has always been transparent about the outbreak of COVID-19 and will support a probe led by the World Health Organisation (WHO) once the pandemic is under control.
President Xi made the comments in a video message to a virtual meeting of the WHO’s decision-making body, the World Health Assembly on Monday, where he also pledged $2 billion over two years to help with the global COVID-19 response.
In the video speech to the WHO, Xi said China has been open and transparent about the COVID-19 outbreak that first emerged in the country in late 2019 and will support an investigation conducted in an objective and impartial manner.
Calling the pandemic “the most serious global public health emergency since the end of World War Two”, Xi said: “All along we have acted with openness and transparency and responsibility.
READ ALSO: US claims China attempting to steal its COVID-19 research
“We have turned the tide on the virus,” he said.
The comments by President Xi came days after Chinese authorities admitted to destroying COVID-19 samples in unauthorised laboratories early in the outbreak for safety reasons.
The US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo had in April accused China of refusing to provide virus samples taken from patients when the pandemic began in China in late 2019 and that Chinese authorities had destroyed early samples.
An official of the National Health Commission’s Science and Education Department, Liu Dengfeng, told the South China Morning Post that the samples were destroyed at unauthorized labs to “prevent the risk to laboratory biological safety and prevent secondary disasters caused by unidentified pathogens.”
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