Peter Ben Embarek, who led the WHO side of a joint team with
scientists in China, was dismissed last year, the health agency said. WHO says
it has stepped up efforts to root out sexual abuse, exploitation and harassment
in recent months after a string of cases and incidents were reported in the
press.
“Peter Ben Embarek was dismissed following findings of
sexual misconduct against him and corresponding disciplinary process,” said
spokeswoman Marcia Poole said in an email. “The findings concern allegations relating
to 2015 and 2017 that were first received by the WHO investigations team in
2018.”
She said other allegations could not be fully investigated
as the “victim(s) did not wish to engage with the investigation process.”
Ben Embarek did not immediately respond to a call or text
message to his mobile phone on Thursday. The news was first reported by The
Financial Times.
Ben Embarek led an international team picked by WHO that
traveled to China in early 2021, visited the Huanan market in Wuhan — the city
where the first human cases appeared — and worked closely with Chinese
scientists to try to identify how the virus first began sickening people.
The team issued a report in March that year that said the
most likely scenario was that COVID-19 jumped from bats to humans via another
animal, dismissing a lab leak as “extremely unlikely.” WHO officials, including
Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, have since said that the origins
remain unclear and the lab-leak theory cannot be ruled out.
Ben Embarek, a Danish expert on disease transmission from
animals to humans, told a TV program in Denmark later in 2021 that he had
concerns about a Chinese lab near the market later in 2021.
The impact of Ben Embarek’s dismissal on efforts to solve
that lingering enigma remains unclear. The joint WHO-China team has since been
disbanded, and a separate panel of experts drafted by WHO has taken up the role
of trying to find the origins of the coronavirus.
Word of the dismissal comes as WHO is convening an expert
group this week to decide if COVID-19 remains an international health
emergency, after sharp declines in case counts and deaths from the pandemic in
recent months — even if pockets of cases continue.
WHO says it has been working to root out sexual abuse,
exploitation and harassment in its ranks after press reports first arose in
2020 about systemic abuse of dozens of women during the agency’s response to an
Ebola outbreak in Congo.
More than 80 staffers under the direction of WHO and
partners were alleged to have raped women and young girls, demanded sex in
return for jobs and forced some victims to have abortions, in the biggest known
sex abuse scandal in the U.N. health agency’s history.
Not a single senior manager connected to the Congo abuse has
been dismissed, despite documents showing WHO leaders were aware as it was
happening. An internal U.N. report submitted to WHO earlier this year found
that despite senior managers being informed of the sexual abuse, no misconduct
was committed.
Last month, WHO said it fired Fijian doctor Temo Waqanivalu,
who faced allegations first reported by the AP, that he had repeatedly engaged
in sexual harassment. -AP
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