The World Health Organization revealed it fired a top scientist, once tasked with uncovering the origins of the COVID-19 health crisis, over allegations of sexual misconduct.
Peter Ben Embarek, a Danish expert on disease transmission from animals to humans, was dismissed in 2022 following the completion of separate probes into the complaints brought against him. It comes amid WHO’s efforts to crackdown on sexual abuse, exploitation and harassment, sparked by a string of cases reported by the media in recent months.
“Peter Ben Embarek was dismissed following findings of sexual misconduct against him and corresponding disciplinary process,” spokeswoman Marcia Poole confirmed Thursday. “The findings concern allegations relating to 2015 and 2017 that were first received by the WHO investigations team in 2018.”
Poole added that additional allegations could not be fully investigated as the “victim(s) did not wish to engage with the investigation process.”
Embarek was hand-picked by WHO to lead an international team of experts who worked with scientists in China to explore key questions about the coronavirus, specifically how it jumped the species barrier from bats to humans. The research team arrived in the city of Wuhan in January 2021, after months of pushback and negotiations with China regarding the arrangements of the probe.
The group was allowed to visit key sites including several medical facilities, the Huanan seafood market as well as the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which has also been involved in coronavirus research. At the start of the pandemic, there had been speculation surrounding the facility and whether it had manufactured or accidentally leaked COVID-19.
In March of the same year, they released a report concluding that COVID-19 likely 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.