Coronavirus: Chinese samples, data can provide key to pathogen’s origin, WHO team says
- Investigation in China ‘not about finding a guilty country … [but] trying to understand what happened’, German scientist says
- WHO team has already begun discussions with scientists in China and will travel there next month
The search for the source of the pathogen has sparked claims of cover-ups and fuelled political tensions, particularly between Washington and Beijing. Most researchers think the virus originated in animals, probably bats, in China and the WHO has put together a 10-person team to examine the science.
Mission member Fabian Leendertz, a biologist at Germany’s Robert Koch Institute who specialises in emerging diseases, said the goal was to gather data to be better prepared for possible future outbreaks.
“It’s really not about finding a guilty country,” he said. “It’s about trying to understand what happened and then see if based on those data, we can try to reduce the risk in the future.”
Leendertz said on Tuesday the team had already begun discussions with scientists in China and was expected to travel there next month. They are likely to begin their work in Wuhan, where the outbreak was first reported, but a precise itinerary has not yet been set.
