Coronavirus: Britain’s Boris Johnson says world needs pandemic treaty, citing China’s Wuhan
- Asked who he blames for lack of transparency on the outbreak’s source, PM says ‘most of the evidence’ points to Covid-19 originating in the Chinese city
- Britain and the US have expressed concern over access given to a WHO-led fact-finding mission by Beijing
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Monday that world powers should clinch a global treaty on pandemics to ensure proper transparency after the novel coronavirus outbreak which was first reported in China.
Johnson said he would be keen to sign a global treaty on pandemics where countries agreed to share data, amid British and US concern over access given to a World Health Organization (WHO) mission to China.
Asked who he held responsible for any lack of transparency on the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic, Johnson said: “I think its fairly obvious that most of the evidence seems to point to the disease having originated in Wuhan.”
“Therefore we all need to see as much as we possibly can about how that might have happened, the zoonotic questions that people are asking. I think we need as much data as possible,” he said.
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“I think one of the attractive ideas that we have seen in the last few months has been a proposal for a global treaty on pandemics, so that signatory countries make sure that they contribute all the data they have and we are able to get to the bottom of what’s happened and stop it happening again,” the prime minister said at a news conference.