Experts in China for virus inquiry

WHO team sent on scoping mission

AN ADVANCE team from the World Health Organization (WHO) was headed to China to organise an investigation into the origins of the novel coronavirus which sparked the global pandemic, a spokeswoman said yesterday.

The virus is believed to have emerged in a wholesale market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year, since then closed, after jumping the species barrier from the animal kingdom to infect humans.

The two WHO experts, specialists in animal health and epidemiology, will work with Chinese scientists to determine the scope and itinerary of the investigation, WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris said, declining to name them.

“They have gone, they are in the air now, they are the advance party that is to work out the scope,” she said.

This would involve negotiations on issues including the composition of the fuller team, she said.

“One of the big issues that everybody is interested in, and of course that’s why we’re sending an animal health expert, is to look at whether or not it jumped from species to a human and what species it jumped from,” Harris said.

“We know it’s very, very similar to the virus in the bat, but did it go through an intermediate species? This is a question we all need answered,” she said.

The two experts will spend the weekend in the Chinese capital.

In an effort to block future outbreaks, China has cracked down on the trade in wildlife and closed some wet markets.

The WHO mission is politically sensitive, with the US – the top funder of the UN body – moving to cut ties with it over allegations the agency mishandled the outbreak and is biased toward China.

More than 120 nations called for an investigation into the origins of the virus at the World Health Assembly in May. China has insisted that WHO lead the investigation and for it to wait until the pandemic is brought under control. The US, Brazil and India are continuing to see an increasing number of cases.

The last WHO coronavirus-specific mission to China was in February, after which the team’s leader, Canadian doctor Bruce Aylward, praised China’s containment efforts and information-sharing.

Canadian and American officials have since criticised him as being too lenient on China. | Reuters and AP