WHO team to visit China
Nation transparent, cooperative in virus tracing
The World Health Organization (WHO) plans to send a team to China next week to prepare to identify the source of coronavirus, and Chinese experts believe the team should hold discussions with the Chinese side on how to conduct the work globally and fairly, noting that the visit does not mean the virus originated in China.
“We can fight the virus better when we know everything about the virus, including how it started,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual press conference on Monday.
“We will be sending a team next week to China to prepare for that and we hope that will lead into understanding how the virus started and what we can do for the future to prepare,” he said. He did not specify who will be in the team, nor what their specific mission will be.
Since the COVID-19 outbreak, China has maintained communication and cooperation with the WHO on the traceability of the virus, and Chinese scientists are also conducting exchanges with their international counterparts, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said at Tuesday’s media briefing.
Zhao reiterated that the source of the virus should be studied and researched by scientists and medical experts, and China continues to support scientists of all countries in conducting global scientific research on the source and transmission of the virus.
Chinese experts believe that the upcoming visit demonstrates the Chinese government’s open, transparent and cooperative attitude in tracing the source of the virus through joint international efforts and that the work should be done fairly and involve all relevant countries.
Zeng Guang, chief epidemiologist of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told the Global Times that although the exact arrangements for the WHO team are unknown, the team should communicate with Chinese experts on the preparation work.
The WHO should have a top-level design on identifying the source of coronavirus. First, all evidence on the source must be collected globally, and then be ordered according to when they happened, and then teams must be sent to all the involved countries for scientific identification and research, Zeng said.
“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.
In February, a WHO delegation and Chinese experts formed a joint team and visited Beijing, Wuhan, South China’s Guangdong and Southwest China’s Sichuan provinces.
Wang Guangfa, a respiratory expert at Peking University First Hospital and a member of the February joint team, said that China is only a link in the virus transmission chain, and the WHO should go to more countries for more comprehensive investigations on the virus origin.
The source of the virus should be studied and researched by scientists and medical experts, and China continues to support scientists of all countries in conducting global scientific research on the source and transmission of the virus: FM