18th May, 2020
An alliance of 116 countries have supported Australia’s call to launch an independent investigation into what had caused the COVID-19 pandemic.
Foreign Minister Marise Payne said Australian Interior Minister Peter Dutton already urged China to release information about the novel coronavirus.
Payne said; “I think what it illustrates is a broad view that given the experience of COVID-19 – more than 300,000 deaths, millions of millions of people around the world losing their jobs, including here.
“The job loss is the impact on economies from one corner of the globe to the other – that there is a strong view that it is appropriate to engage in a review of what has happened in the pandemic.
“The impact it has had, to ensure that we learn those lessons so that it does not happen again,” Payne said at a news conference.
In particular, a group of 54 African countries has joined the motion which has already been backed by 62 countries, including the EU member states, the UK, Russia, Japan, India, Indonesia, and Canada, among others.
Payne said a discussion into the matter would continue at the virtual World Health Assembly meeting, scheduled to take place later on Monday.