Coronavirus: WHO will send ‘advance team’ to China in hunt for source of Covid-19
- Animal health expert and specialist in epidemiological field investigations to be part of ‘scoping mission’
- World Health Organisation says a larger international inquiry is expected to follow
An animal health expert and a specialist in epidemiological field investigations from the WHO’s Geneva headquarters are expected to be part of an “advance mission” to China, the organisation said on Wednesday.
“That is a scoping mission and we do expect then, in collaboration with colleagues in China, to define a larger international mission,” executive director of the WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme Mike Ryan said at a regular press briefing.
“We can fight the virus better when we know everything about the virus, including how it started,” Tedros said.
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The WHO has not said when a larger international investigation will begin, even as Covid-19 has spread across the world, so far killing more than half a million people and infecting over 10 million. While most scientists agree the virus likely came from bats via an intermediary animal, the search for the origin has become entangled in a politicised blame game.
US officials have said without evidence that the pathogen could have escaped from a high-security laboratory in Wuhan that investigated viral causes of disease. Beijing responded that it may have been brought into Wuhan by the US military. Chinese officials have also argued that the identification of the virus in China does not mean it originated there.
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Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention chief epidemiologist Zeng Guang told state tabloid Global Times on Tuesday that a search for the origins of the virus should not only take place in China.
“It does not matter which country the scientific identification work starts with, as long as it involves all related countries and is fairly conducted,” Zeng said.
Prior to the resolution, the WHO had already said it was in talks with China to organise a mission to examine the zoonotic, or animal, source of the virus.
A previous WHO-China joint mission that also included experts from seven countries and Hong Kong took place in February and focused on Covid-19 disease transmission and control. It was also preceded by an advance team of WHO experts who spent five days with Chinese officials to prepare for the arrival of the international team later that month.
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The upcoming visit to China would similarly allow WHO experts and Chinese counterparts to “set up the scope of the missions, the terms of references, the areas of study, and to lay out a programme of work”, according to Ryan. Formalities were still being dealt with, he said.
“It’s important to note that we welcome such collaboration. In many, many situations, we work very closely with countries who generally will carry out their own investigations and provide those investigations to WHO, and therefore it is an extra step for any country to invite international teams and collaborate openly with them,” Ryan said.
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An international mission could be an opportunity for experts to gain more access to research China has already done into the source of the virus, as certain details from investigations have not been shared with the international community, according to Daniel Lucey, adjunct professor of infectious diseases at Georgetown University Medical Centre in Washington.
Lucey said that having an international team of experts on the ground working jointly with China could be fruitful “if you have the right people, with the right skill sets, and the access to the scientific data and information”.
