China blocked WHO’s experts for Covid investigation
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) says he is “very disappointed” that China has still not approved the entry of a team of international experts tasked with investigating the origins of the coronavirus, as some countries grapple with the increasing burden of the pandemic.
Two members of the 10-strong international team had already begun their journey to China; when it emerged that they had still not been granted entry; WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told an online news conference in Geneva on Tuesday afternoon.
Today we learned that Chinese officials have not yet finalized the necessary permissions for the team’s arrival in China,” he said, noting that the WHO, China, and transit countries had worked together on the arrangements.
“I have been in contact with senior Chinese officials and I have once again made clear that the mission is a priority for WHO and the international team. I have been assured that China is speeding up the internal procedure for the earliest possible deployment.”
The WHO expert team – led by Peter Ben Embarek, the WHO’s leading expert on animal diseases; that cross the species barrier; is supposed to travel to Wuhan where the first cases of the coronavirus were reported; at the end of 2019 to make in-depth “epidemiologic; virologic, serologic assessments” of people and animals in an attempt to find out where the virus might have come from.
Some 86.2 million people around the world have now been diagnosed with COVID-19 and 1,895,267 have died; although vaccine approvals have raised hopes that the pandemic might be brought under control.
Of the two team members who had already begun to travel one had now turned back and the other is in a third country; emergencies chief Mike Ryan said.
“We trust and hope that is just a logistic and bureaucratic issue that can be resolved very quickly,” he said.
China said on Wednesday it was still negotiating with the World Health Organization the dates and itinerary for a visit by international experts.
China’s position on the hunt for the origins of the pandemic “has always been open and responsible”; said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying.
She said that China has close cooperation with WHO.
“The origins problem is very complex. To ensure that the work of the global experts’ group in China is successful and to carry out the necessary procedures and relevant concrete plans, currently, both sides are still in negotiations on this,” Hua told a regular press briefing. “I understand that it’s not just a visa problem and the actual date and itinerary. Both sides are still in close communication.”
China’s disease experts are currently busy with multiple small-scale clusters and outbreaks reported in the past couple of weeks; she added.
“Our experts are wholeheartedly in the stressful battle to control the epidemic,” she said.
