WHO should seek the source of coronavirus – Resolution of 62 member countries of the World Health Organisation, including India

Geneva (Switzerland) – India is among 62 countries that have moved a proposal at the World Health Assembly to “identify the zoonotic source” of the coronavirus and asked for an “impartial, independent and comprehensive evaluation” of the WHO’s response to Covid-19. China and the US are not part of the resolution.

The proposal is part of a seven-page draft resolution moved by 35 countries and the 27-member European Union, and is likely to be taken up on Monday at the Assembly, which is the decision-making body of the WHO.

The draft resolution asks WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to “initiate at the earliest appropriate moment, stepwise process of impartial, independent and comprehensive evaluation” of the international response, and the actions of the WHO and its “timeline” of the pandemic.

It asks the WHO chief to work with the World Organisation for Animal Health to conduct “scientific and collaborative field missions” and “identify the zoonotic source of the virus and the route of introduction to the human population, including the possible role of intermediate hosts”.