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Coronavirus pandemic
ChinaScience

Coronavirus: WHO gears up for main mission into China to hunt for the origins of Covid-19

  • WHO and Chinese experts have drafted terms of reference for probe into the epidemiology of early infections
  • Investigators will examine the first cases identified in Wuhan to try to track the animal source of the virus

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Early cases of coronavirus in Hubei province will be re-examined by a team of international investigators, led by the World Health Organisation. Photo: SCMP/Simon Song
Simone McCarthy
The World Health Organisation is set to lead an international mission into China to conduct a full investigation with local scientists into the Covid-19 outbreak’s first known cases to try to trace the virus responsible back to its animal origins, the organisation said on Monday.
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A two-person team of WHO experts sent to China last month completed the groundwork for a larger, WHO-led international investigation to follow, the organisation said in a regular press briefing.

The team spent three weeks in meetings and video conferences with scientific counterparts in Beijing and Wuhan, where the virus was first identified late last year, the WHO said. The meeting enabled the WHO experts, who were not named, to understand the research that had already been done in China, including around the Wuhan seafood market linked to a number of early cases of Covid-19.

“As a result of these efforts, WHO and Chinese experts have drafted the terms of reference for the studies and programme of work for an international team, led by WHO,” director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

Who will be on the team has not been decided, according to WHO Health Emergencies Programme executive director Mike Ryan. The time frame for the next mission was also not specified, although last month Ryan said assembling the team and sending them to China, where they must adhere to a quarantine period, would take a matter of weeks.

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