Foreign, Chinese experts had same access to virus data: Leading expert

Foreign experts and Chinese experts had the same access to data while conducting the joint study into the origins of the novel coronavirus in China, and the allegation that China refused to offer raw data is ill-founded, a leading Chinese expert said on March 31.

On Tuesday, the World Health Organization released the investigation report into the origins of the COVID-19 virus. The joint expert team in January conducted a four-week visit to Wuhan in Central China's Hubei province, where the first COVID-19 case was reported, and the findings said the pandemic probably came to humans from animals and it was "extremely unlikely" that the virus escaped from a laboratory.

However, the WHO raised concerns about the level of access China provided to the experts during their visit to Wuhan in January, and there have been some accusations subsequently from western countries, pointing to a lack of access to samples and data.

"The assumption and claim that China did not share (the data) is ill-founded," Liang Wannian, team leader of the Chinese side of the WHO-China joint expert team, said on Wednesday at a news conference in Beijing.

"The information provided to Chinese and foreign experts was of no difference."

He said experts from both the Chinese and foreign sides, since they arrived in Wuhan, had worked together on the research and together analyzed the available information and materials, and they had been working in a highly integrated way.

Liang said it is true that some data, according to Chinese laws, could not be taken away or photographed, for example data involving patients' privacy or requiring patients' informed consent. "This is a legal requirement and also a basic rule internationally," he said.

Liang also said that the concept of "raw data" should be clearly specified. Data have many types and some may be very mixed and involve numerous aspects. They need to be sorted into categories first, and then mined and put together before being able to start providing corresponding information, he said.

Liang said the joint-research report is based on science and faithful to facts, with the efforts of scientists from the WHO and China. "It can stand the test of time," he said.

During the work, Chinese and foreign experts adhered to "four together" principles - formulating the work plan together, conducting scientific research together, writing the research report together and publishing the results together, according to Liang. He said it's an "excellent international collaborative study".

Liang said because it has already been over a year since the first outbreak, many biological, product and environment samples may have been lost in Wuhan because at that early time, researchers did not understand the disease nor the virus, so they didn't realize they needed to retain all materials, but they've tried their best to find them.

He acknowledged that there could be discrepancies in people's memories due to the long time and that tracing techniques and methods were not perfect, but the report is still valuable for further research on the disease.

"The end of this investigation does not mean the end of tracing the origin of COVID-19," he said.

"Based on the findings in China, we will further promote our origin tracing work globally through various ways and channels and we will continue to actively participate in the WHO's work of origin tracing," he added.