WHO team makes progress

Visiting experts’ productive talks with Chinese peers welcomed by UN agency

The World Health Organization said on Monday that a visiting team of international experts has made progress on the ground in work with Chinese peers on scientific research into the novel coronavirus.

Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical lead on COVID-19, said the team has had “very productive discussions” with Chinese counterparts, visited different hospitals and had a good visit to seafood market.

“We had some good feedback from them,” she told the virtual news conference in an update on the WHO team’s progress in the scientific research work.

The team has also met with counterparts at the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and CDCs at other levels. “And they are having very good discussions,” said Van Kerkhove, who was on a WHO expert mission to China last year.

She said the team will visit the Wuhan Institute of Virology, adding that “we do leave them the freedom to decide the visits that they need to make throughout the course of mission that they have”.

She said the detailed information the team received requires analysis, which is ongoing between the team and their Chinese counterparts.

Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme, is also happy with the scientific process of discovery. “Progress is being made,” he said.

Ryan criticized the comments made by some that they won’t accept the team’s report when it comes out and that they may have intelligence that shows different findings.

“I would say, right now, as I sit here, no other countries have provided any documentary, intelligence or other information to WHO,” he said.

“We are out there looking for it. We are there with experts from 10 countries looking to find answers.”

Ryan noted that people also had made such comments before but never provided any evidence.

Baseless claim

Former US president Donald Trump and his secretary of state Mike Pompeo claimed last year that they saw “enormous evidence” that the virus came from a Wuhan laboratory, but never provided evidence.

Ryan stressed that the international team is mandated by a unanimous resolution of the World Health Assembly, representing 194 countries. “It deserves the support of the international community,” he said.

He said that not that all answers can be found this time, but people who think and say they have information should start providing it.

Ryan noted on Friday that the media contingent following the mission in China is much larger than the international and Chinese teams put together.

“It’s obviously a very good thing that we have that transparency, but it’s also important that we let the team get on with the business of the work they’re doing,” he said.

On Monday, the WHO reported that for a third week in a row, the number of new COVID-19 cases globally fell last week.

“There are still many countries with increasing number of cases, but at the global level, this is encouraging news,” the WHO’s Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

“It shows this virus can be controlled, even with the new variants in circulation. And it shows that if we keep going with the same proven public health measures, we can prevent infections and save lives.”