Coronavirus: WHO was first informed by its office in China in late December

The World Health Organization said this week that it had been alerted at the end of December by its own office in China, and not by China itself, about the first cases of pneumonia in Wuhan, which caused the Covid pandemic. -19.

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On April 9, the WHO published a first chronology of its communication to respond to criticism, especially from America, accusing it of having delayed sounding the alarm and showing complacency towards China.

In this chronology, the WHO had so far limited itself to indicating that the Municipal Health Commission of Wuhan in the province of Hubei in China had reported on December 31st cases of pneumonia. The health agency did not specify who warned her, however.

December 31, reporting of " viral pneumonia "

On April 20, the Director General of WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, accused by the Americans of having neglected key information on a possible transmission of the coronavirus between humans coming from Taiwan at the end of December 2019, had also assured in conference that the first report had " come from China ", without specifying whether it had been transmitted by the Chinese authorities or by another source. The new chronology, published this week by the Geneva-based institution, offers a more detailed version of the facts.

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She indicates that it is the WHO office in China which, on December 31, notified its regional referent of cases of " viral pneumonia " after having found a statement for the media on the website of the Health Commission of the Wuhan municipality on this. On the same day, the epidemic intelligence service of the WHO collected another press information transmitted by the international epidemiological watch network - based in the United States - on the same group of cases of " pneumonia of unknown cause " in Wuhan.

" The Chinese authorities immediately contacted "

Following this, WHO asked twice, on January 1 and 2, for information on these cases from the Chinese authorities. What they did on January 3. " Countries have 24 to 48 hours to officially verify an event and provide us with additional information about the nature or cause of the event, " said the director of health emergencies to WHO, Michael Ryan, at a press conference.

" The Chinese authorities immediately contacted our national official as soon as we asked them to verify the report, " he said. The pandemic has so far killed more than 521,000 people worldwide. And American President Donald Trump has announced that his country, the main financial contributor to the WHO, will cut ties with the institution, accused of being too close to China and of mismanaging the pandemic. WHO, it denies any complacency towards Beijing.