The WHO international team responsible for investigating the origin of the virus that caused the pandemic will visit the Chinese region of Wuhan, cradle of the epidemic, without being "
supervised
" by Beijing, assured Friday, December 18 an agency manager.
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In the middle of the week, the World Health Organization (WHO) had indicated that this international mission would visit China in January, without however giving more details on the places they will visit or on the date of their arrival.
“
The team will go to Wuhan, that is the objective of the mission,
” this time the person in charge of health emergencies at the WHO, Michael Ryan, at a press conference.
"
We do not yet have a departure date as we organize the logistics of visas and flights, but we expect the team to leave the first week of January,
" he said.
He also indicated that the experts will be placed in quarantine on their arrival, and will pass through Beijing, out of "
courtesy
" to China.
"
But the objective of this mission is to go where the first human cases were detected,
”he insisted.
Scientists generally believe that the original host of the virus is a bat, but the intermediate animal that allowed human contamination is unknown.
The WHO mission is made up of ten scientists (Denmark, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Australia, Russia, Vietnam, Germany, United States, Qatar and Japan) recognized in their various fields of expertise, and has for mission to go back to the origins of the virus and to know how it was transmitted to humans.
“
The team is a WHO team, it's a team of internationally renowned international experts.
We will work with our Chinese colleagues, they will not, as you say, be supervised by Chinese officials
, ”Bryan replied, in response to a question from a reporter.
If this mission has not yet visited the site, the experts have on the other hand been able to meet by videoconference on several occasions, since the end of October, with their Chinese counterparts.
The United States, the country most bereaved by the pandemic with more than 310,000 dead, has publicly accused Beijing of hiding things and the WHO of bending too much to the will of the Chinese authorities.