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WUHAN, China (AP) – A relative of a coronavirus victim in China requests to meet a team of visiting experts from the World Health Organization, saying he should speak to affected families who claim to be suffocated by the Chinese government.
China only approved the visit of researchers under the auspices of the United Nations agency after months of negotiations. He did not say whether they will be allowed to collect evidence or speak to families, only saying the team can exchange views with Chinese scientists.
“I hope the WHO experts do not become a tool to spread lies,” said Zhang Hai, whose father died of COVID-19 on February 1, 2020, after visiting the Chinese city. from Wuhan and have been infected. “We are relentlessly searching for the truth. It was a criminal act and I don’t want the WHO to come to China to cover up these crimes.
China’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The WHO team, which arrived in Wuhan on January 14 to investigate the origins of the virus, is expected to begin fieldwork later this week after a 14-day quarantine.
Zhang, a native of Wuhan now living in the southern city of Shenzhen, has organized relatives of coronavirus victims in China to hold those responsible to account.
Many are angry that the state has played down the virus at the start of the epidemic, and attempted to sue the Wuhan government.
Relatives have faced immense pressure from the authorities not to speak out. Officials have dismissed the lawsuits, interrogated Zhang and others repeatedly and threatened to fire relatives of those who spoke to foreign media, according to interviews with Zhang and other relatives.
Zhang said the family’s focus groups were closed soon after the WHO team arrived in Wuhan, and he accused the city government of trying to silence them.
“Don’t pretend we don’t exist, that we aren’t accountable,” Zhang said. “You’ve wiped out all of our platforms, but we still want everyone to know from the media that we haven’t given up.”
WHO says visit to China is scientific mission to investigate virus origins, not an effort to assign blame, and that ‘in-depth interviews and reviews’ of early cases are needed. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
China initially rejected requests for an international investigation after the Trump administration blamed Beijing for the virus, but bowed to global pressure in May for an investigation into the origins.
On Monday, Dr Anthony Fauci, the chief infectious disease official in the United States, told the World Economic Forum that the origins of the virus that brought the world to its knees are still unknown, “a big black box, which is terrible. “
The mission has been repeatedly delayed by negotiations and setbacks, one of which prompted an unusual public complaint from the WHO chief.
The arrival of the WHO mission has rekindled controversy over whether China allowed the virus to spread around the world by reacting too slowly in the early days.
From the beginning, WHO officials have tried to get more cooperation from China, with limited success.
Audio recordings of internal WHO meetings obtained by The Associated Press and first released on Tuesday show that while the WHO praised China in public, officials complained in private that they were not getting enough information.
The United Nations agency has no executive powers, so it must rely on the goodwill of member countries.
Keiji Fukuda, a public health expert at the University of Hong Kong, said the visit was an “image-building mission” in addition to a scientific mission, with China keen to be transparent and the WHO eager to show that she was taking action. .
“China and WHO are hoping to get brownie points,” said Fukuda, a former WHO official. “But it all depends on what the team will have access to. Will they really be able to ask the questions they want to ask? “
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Kang reported from Beijing.
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