The World Health Organisation (WHO) rebuked Chinese officials for withholding scientific research that may reveal the origin of the coronavirus, according to a report by The New York Times (NYT).

The WHO, on Friday also asked the Chinese officials about the reasons behind not revealing the data three years ago and why, after it was published online in January, it could not be found now.

Before the data 'vanished' into the internet space, an international team of virus experts downloaded and began analysing the research.

The team revealed that the data supports the idea that the pandemic could have begun from the illegally traded raccoon dogs, which infected people at China’s Wuhan Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market.

But the team couldn’t reach the final result as the gene sequences were removed from a scientific database once the experts offered to collaborate on the analysis with their Chinese counterparts, NYT reported.

"These data should have been shared three years ago,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO’s director general, said, adding that the missing evidence now “needs to be shared with the international community immediately."

According to the expert team, which was reviewing the data, the research offers evidence that raccoon dogs, fox-like animals known to spread coronaviruses, had left behind DNA in the same place in the Wuhan market that genetic signatures of the new coronavirus also were discovered.

“It’s just very unlikely to be seeing this much animal DNA, especially raccoon dog DNA, mixed in with viral samples if it’s simply mostly human contamination,” said Sarah Cobey, an epidemiologist and evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago.

Notably, Cobey was one of 18 scientists who signed an influential letter in the journal Science in May 2021 urging serious consideration of a scenario in which the virus could have spilled out of a laboratory in Wuhan. 

Image courtesy: Twitter/@DrTedros