- Title: WHO advance team on way to China to set up probe into virus origin
- Date: 10th July 2020
- Summary: WUHAN, HUBEI PROVINCE, CHINA (FILE - MAY 16, 2020) (REUTERS) RESIDENTS QUEUING FOR NUCLEIC ACID TESTING MEDICAL STAFF TAKING SWABS FROM RESIDENTS MEDICAL STAFF CLEANING HANDS MEDICAL STAFF TAKING SWABS FROM RESIDENTS RESIDENTS REGISTERING FOR NUCLEIC ACID TEST
- Embargoed: 24th July 2020 14:23
- Keywords: China WHO Wuhan virus origin
- Location: WUHAN, CHINA/ GENEVA SWITZERLAND
- City: WUHAN, CHINA/ GENEVA SWITZERLAND
- Country: Switzerland
- Topics: Health/Medicine
- Reuters ID: LVA003CM8703R
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: PART QUALITY AS INCOMING
An advance team from the World Health Organization (WHO) has left for China to organise an investigation into the origins of the novel coronavirus which sparked the global pandemic, a spokeswoman said on Friday (July 10).
The virus is believed to have emerged in a wholesale market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year, since then closed, after jumping the species barrier from the animal kingdom to infect humans.
The two WHO experts, specialists in animal health and epidemiology, will work with Chinese scientists to determine the scope and itinerary of the investigation, WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris told a U.N. briefing in Geneva.
The WHO will have no role in an independent panel, announced on Thursday (July 9), to review the global handling of pandemic, Harris said, adding: "From now on it is completely hands off".
U.S. President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Michael Pompeo have said it may have originated in a laboratory in Wuhan, although they have presented no evidence for this and China strongly denies it. Scientists and U.S. intelligence agencies have said it emerged in nature.
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