EU calls on China to provide transparent Covid-19 data

On Wednesday, the EU member states agreed to put in place a recommendation concerning pre-flight Covid-19 testing and mask-wearing for passengers arriving from China.

"I welcome the agreement of Member States on a coordinated response to the #Covid19 situation in China at yesterday's IPCR (EU Integrated Political Crisis Response) meeting. China must share data transparently on its current situation," European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Kyriakides tweeted.

The EU official also said the regional European and global cooperation was the only way to tackle the pandemic.

Earlier in December, China abandoned its zero-covid policy, leading to a sudden spike in cases.

As many as 40 per cent of the Chinese population was infected by Covid-19 over the past month amid the rising number of cases in the country, Asia Times reported citing medical experts.

Chinese epidemiologist Zeng Guang said as most Chinese cities reported that 50 per cent of their people had tested positive, it was reasonable to estimate that about 40 per cent of the country's population on average could have been infected, the Hong Kong-based English news outlet reported.

On Wednesday, World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus once again asked China to share reliable data on Covid hospitalizations and deaths in the country.

"We continue to ask China for more rapid, regular, reliable data on hospitalizations and deaths, as well as more comprehensive, real-time viral sequencing," Tedros said at a media briefing in Geneva, according to the script of the media briefing posted on the WHO website.

The Technical Advisory Group on Virus Evolution (TAG-VE) met on January 3 to discuss the Covid-19 situation in mainland China.

During the meeting, scientists from the China CDC presented genomic data from what they described as imported as well as locally-acquired cases of SARS-CoV-2 infections.

In a statement, WHO said the China CDC analysis showed a predominance of Omicron lineages BA.5.2 and BF.7 among locally-acquired infections. "BA.5.2 and BF.7 together accounted for 97.5 per cent of all local infections as per genomic sequencing," the statement added. (ANI)