The Chinese leadership had long been blocked. But now experts from the World Health Organization have landed in Wuhan. You want to find out how the coronavirus spread.
By Steffen Wurzel, ARD-Studio Shanghai
The World Health Organization (WHO) team of experts arrived in Wuhan early this morning with a line machine from Singapore. The team of around ten experts is to research the origin of the Covid 19 pandemic in China.
However, the international scientists cannot start right away. A spokesman for the Chinese health authority confirmed yesterday: The usual rules apply to the WHO investigation team after entering China, i.e. at least 14 days of hotel quarantine. Even during this time, it is said, the international experts will be exchanging ideas with Chinese colleagues in video conference calls.
The experts come from Australia, Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Japan, Qatar, Russia, the USA and Vietnam. The WHO delegation is headed by Peter Ben Embarek, an expert on animal diseases that spread to other species.
Intermediate host wanted
The first Covid 19 cases occurred in the Chinese city of eleven million Wuhan at the end of 2019. Most international scientists assume that bats were the original hosts of the corona lung virus. It is unclear which animal served as the intermediate host in the transmission to humans. China’s leadership and the country’s media claim the virus was brought into China from outside.
At its annual conference in May, the WHO decided to send an international team of experts to China to research the origin of the Covid pandemic. China’s state and party leadership had delayed the arrival of the researchers for months. Observers do not expect the WHO experts in China to be able to research freely.
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