World / WHO team to arrive in China on Thursday to probe origins of COVID-19

Geneva: China’s National Health Commission (NHC) has announced that an international team of experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) will arrive Thursday to work with Chinese scientists on a joint scientific operation to examine the origins of the new coronavirus.

Why it matters: The announcement came after WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus expressed disappointment Tuesday over Beijing’s alleged delay in granting entry to a 10-strong international team of experts who had been due to set off in early January.

WHO’s emergencies chief Mike Ryan added that he hoped the delay was “just a logistic and bureaucratic issue that can be resolved very quickly.”

In response, Chinese foreign ministry said Wednesday that China and the WHO had “maintained close communication,” adding that last week the two sides had still been “in discussions” on “specific arrangements” of the team’s China trip.

Hua Chunying, a spokeswoman at the foreign ministry said during a press conference that, “in order to ensure the smooth progress of the work of the international expert group in China, necessary procedures need to be fulfilled and relevant specific arrangements need to be made.”

“China has overcome difficulties, accelerated preparatory work at home and tried its best to create favorable conditions for the international expert team’s visit to China,” Hua said. “WHO knows that clearly.”

WHO’s top animal diseases expert Peter Ben Embarek had traveled to China on a preliminary mission in July. WHO also sent an advance team to conduct field research in China into the country’s response to the early stage of the outbreak in February.