WHO consultants arrive in Wuhan to probe origins of COVID-19 pandemic

A crew of World Health Organisation scientists arrived in Wuhan on Thursday to analyze the origins of the lethal coronavirus pandemic, which emerged from the central Chinese metropolis in December 2019 earlier than engulfing your entire world.
The WHO consultants arrived in Wuhan for the COVID-19 origin mission, Chinese official media reported.
The crew, reportedly consisting of ten specialists, instantly flew from Singapore.

According to the China’s National Health Commission (NHC), the WHO crew might want to undergo related quarantine procedures required underneath the nation’s epidemic management measures earlier than conducting fieldwork.
They had been anticipated to undergo a 14-day quarantine interval and the mandatory COVID-19 exams.
NHC officers informed the media in Beijing on Wednesday that discovering the origins of the virus is a scientific query, and so they steered conducting comparable visits to different international locations to attain this goal.
The WHO consultants will talk with Chinese medical consultants by video conferencing throughout their quarantine interval, an NHC official stated.
The WHO crew’s go to has grow to be a bone of competition as Beijing, which questions the widely-held view in regards to the virus’ origins in Wuhan, delayed granting permission to it.

China has been proactively questioning the view that the lethal outbreak happened in a moist market in Wuhan the place reside animals, birds and reptiles are bought and unfold to people. The market remained closed and sealed since early final 12 months.
Chinese CDC Deputy Director Feng Zijian stated he has no solutions as to what the intermediate host of the novel coronavirus was, or how the virus jumped from animals to people, and China’s medical consultants will work intently with the WHO consultants’ crew to attempt to probe its supply.
“China has been calling for collective research by the international community into this virus. When the WHO team reaches Wuhan, Chinese experts will work closely with them to fulfill their job,” Feng stated.
In May final 12 months, the World Health Assembly (WHA) — the governing physique of the 194-member states of the WHO — authorised a decision to arrange an unbiased inquiry to conduct an “impartial, independent and comprehensive evaluation” of the worldwide response in addition to that of the WHO.
It additionally requested the WHO to analyze the “supply of the virus and the route of introduction to the human inhabitants .

The WHO consultants arrived in Wuhan as China is experiencing a relapse of COVID-19 instances.
The NHC on Thursday reported 138 newly confirmed COVID-19 instances, of which 124 had been domestically transmitted and the remaining arrived from outdoors the mainland.
Of the domestically transmitted instances, 81 had been reported in north China’s Hebei Province and 43 in northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province, the fee stated in its each day report.
One demise associated to the illness was reported in Hebei on Wednesday, with no new suspected instances reported.
Several cities with thousands and thousands of individuals in Hebei province, which borders Beijing, are underneath lockdown to forestall the unfold of the virus.

The complete variety of confirmed COVID-19 instances in China reached 87,844 by Wednesday and 4,635 had died of the illness to this point, in accordance with the NHC.

According to Johns Hopkins University’s coronavirus tracker, over 92,313,000 individuals have been confirmed with the illness internationally and greater than 1,977,000 individuals have died.