International mission will go to China in January to investigate the origin of Covid-19
The international team of ten scientists, created by the World Health Organization (WHO) to determine the origin of the virus that caused the Covid-19 pandemic will travel to China in January 2021, the organization said on Wednesday.
"I can confirm that it will take place in January," a WHO spokesperson, Hedinn Halldorsson, told AFP, confirming comments to the press by one of the experts.
There are no public details about this mission, but WHO officials have said on several occasions that they have been asked to travel to Wuhan, which is considered as the city where Covid-19 broke out, before concluding, if there is evidence that would point to other places.
The mission is made up of ten scientists from Denmark, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Australia, Russia, Vietnam, Germany, the United States, Qatar and Japan, with recognized competencies in different fields, and their mission will be to go back to the alleged origins of the virus and try understand how it was transmitted to humans.
On October 30, the WHO announced that the mission had met for the first time virtually with Chinese experts, but no date was given for a trip, which aroused criticism.
The United States, the country most hit by Covid-19, has openly accused China of hiding information and the WHO of being too benevolent towards the authorities in Beijing. Other Member States, without being so critical, have also implied that they believe that China is holding back information.
Some scientists believe that the origin of the virus is a bat, but they are not sure which animal served as an intermediary between it and man.
This is the piece of the puzzle that the mission wants to discover in order to understand what happened and prevent it from happening again.
There are no public details about this mission, but WHO officials have said on several occasions that they have been asked to travel to Wuhan, which is considered as the city where Covid-19 broke out, before concluding, if there is evidence that would point to other places.
The mission is made up of ten scientists from Denmark, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Australia, Russia, Vietnam, Germany, the United States, Qatar and Japan, with recognized competencies in different fields, and their mission will be to go back to the alleged origins of the virus and try understand how it was transmitted to humans.
On October 30, the WHO announced that the mission had met for the first time virtually with Chinese experts, but no date was given for a trip, which aroused criticism.
The United States, the country most hit by Covid-19, has openly accused China of hiding information and the WHO of being too benevolent towards the authorities in Beijing. Other Member States, without being so critical, have also implied that they believe that China is holding back information.
Some scientists believe that the origin of the virus is a bat, but they are not sure which animal served as an intermediary between it and man.
This is the piece of the puzzle that the mission wants to discover in order to understand what happened and prevent it from happening again.