WHO article on Wuhan, China mission credited in mid-March: Officials
06 March, 2021
The findings of a WHO-led objective to Wuhan, China to investigate the origins of the virus that triggers COVID-19 are anticipated in mid-March, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday (Mar 5).
"The current timing may be the week of 14th-15th March," Peter Ben Embarek, the head of the objective, told a Geneva news briefing.
Ben Embarek, a Who actually professional on diseases that cross from animals to humans, had said towards the end of the mission previous month that the virus probably started in bats, although it was not certain how it reached humans. He also effectively ruled out a lab leak.
WHO officials had earlier said that the objective might issue an overview report before its total findings were ready. That is no longer planned.
"What the team did to their credit rating is actually worked hard to attempt to develop their full report thus we can have a proper discussion around the entire report," stated Mike Ryan, WHO's top emergency expert.
WHO director-standard Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said: "I would like to make sure you everything that happened through the trip will get presented transparently."
The mission has been politically contentious, with Washington saying it wants to review its findings, and some critics suggesting its access in China was too limited.
On Thursday, an open letter from several scientists explained the WHO objective "didn't have the mandate, the independence, or the required accesses to carry out a complete and unrestricted investigation" into each and every one theories about the origins of the virus.
Nikolai Petrovsky, an expert at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, one of the authors of the letter, said on Friday that regardless of the visit by the WHO-led team, the world was not any closer to learning the origins of COVID-19.
Chen Xu, China's ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, told another briefing on Friday: "It isn't an investigation, it really is joint scientific exploration. The experts were chosen by the Globe Health Firm, they conducted their business, scientific collaborations with their Chinese counterparts."
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