WHO Covid team barred from entering China to study origins of coronavirus

by



[ad_1]

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said two scientists from the United Nations team had already left their home countries for Wuhan when they learned that Chinese authorities had not approved the permits necessary to enter the country.

The arrangements had previously been agreed jointly with China.

“I am very disappointed with this news,” Tedros said at a press conference in Geneva on Tuesday. “I have been in contact with senior Chinese officials and once again made it clear that the mission is a priority for WHO and the international team.”

Tedros said the WHO was “impatient to launch the mission as soon as possible” and that he had received assurances that Beijing was speeding up the internal process for “the deployment as soon as possible”.

Dr Michael Ryan, executive director of the WHO’s health emergencies program, said there was a problem with visas and a member of the team had already returned home. The other was waiting in transit in a third country.

WHO officials have long been negotiating with Beijing to allow a team of global scientists to access key sites to investigate the origin of the virus – first detected in Wuhan in December 2019 – and its likely passage from a host species not identified to humans.

In May, the WHO agreed to conduct an investigation into the global response to the pandemic after more than 100 countries signed a resolution calling for an independent investigation.
Leaked documents reveal China's mismanagement of early stages of Covid-19

Ryan said the team hoped it was “just a logistical and bureaucratic issue” that can be resolved in “good faith in the coming hours and restart the team deployment as soon as possible.”

The United States and Australia have led the charge in criticizing China’s handling of the initial stages of the pandemic, accusing Beijing of downplaying its severity and preventing an effective response until too late.

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly blamed China for the global pandemic and announced that the United States will end its relationship with the WHO, claiming that China has not properly communicated the information it has on the coronavirus and had pressured the WHO to “mislead the world”.
The United States demanded transparency in WHO’s operations in China. In November, Garrett Grigsby of the US Department of Health and Human Services told the WHO assembly that the terms of the China inquiry had “not been negotiated transparently” and that “The investigation itself appears to be inconsistent” with its mandate.
A treasure trove of confidential documents obtained by CNN last year from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Hubei province – where the virus was first detected in 2019 – has shown how Chinese authorities have given the world more optimistic data than they had access to internally, initially underreporting the number of cases during the early stages of the outbreak.
The Chinese government has repeatedly rejected accusations by the United States and other Western governments that it has deliberately withheld information relating to the virus, saying it has been outspoken since the outbreak began.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Monday that the country would host the WHO team, according to Reuters.

CNN has reached out to China’s Foreign Ministry for comment on Tedros’ remarks.

As countries around the world grapple with new outbreaks and outbreaks of infection, China appears to be rebounding. Last month, the country recorded positive economic growth for the second consecutive quarter.
China's latest potential culprit in its search for foreign sources of coronavirus? Automotive parts packaging

Foreign Minister Wang Yi praised China’s pandemic control efforts at home and abroad, saying the country “has launched an urgent global humanitarian campaign” and “helped build consensus on a global response to Covid-19 “.

As the WHO team prepared to embark, Chinese officials and state media have questioned the origins of the virus, saying that “a growing body of research suggests the pandemic was likely caused by separate epidemics in several parts of the world, ”Wang said.
On Monday, reports circulated on Chinese social media that the virus had been detected on packaging of auto parts in several cities, including foreign brands.

For months, China has been testing and disinfecting frozen products imported from overseas, fearing the virus could re-enter the country in this way, although experts remain skeptical about it as a potential source of infection.

The WHO says it is “highly unlikely that people could contract Covid-19 from food or food packaging,” and the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says the risk is “considered very low”. Both insist there is no evidence of such transmission, and the countries have even threatened to file a complaint against China with the World Trade Organization for import restrictions.

[ad_2]

Source link