5 Years After Wuhan Outbreak, WHO Repeats Request for COVID-19 Data From China

U.N. health agency says data are needed to understand the origins of COVID-19.

Pandemic control workers walk past a closed shop near a community with residents under health monitoring for COVID-19 in Beijing on Dec. 4, 2022. Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Dec. 30, 2024, restated its request for the Chinese regime to share data and access to help determine the origins of COVID-19, as the organization marked five years since the infection first emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.

“This is a moral and scientific imperative,” the organization said in a statement. “Without transparency, sharing, and cooperation among countries, the world cannot adequately prevent and prepare for future epidemics and pandemics.”