Washington: The World Health Organization (WHO) has rebuked China for its last-minute decision to block the international team which has been formed to investigate how the novel coronavirus originated.
“Today, we learned that Chinese officials have not yet finalized the necessary permissions for the team’s arrivals in China,” WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told newspersons.
“I am very disappointed with this news, given that two members had already begun their journey and others were not able to travel at the last minute,” he added.
Head of WHO’s emergencies programme Michael Ryan described the delay as “frustrating,” after senior Chinese officials were intimated had that the mission “is a priority for WHO and the international team.”
A 10-member team, including epidemiologists and animal health specialists, will focus its research on Wuhan, the home of a wet market reported to be the origin of the human outbreak.
China has been extremely sensitive to the investigation, and has often referred to ubsubstantiated reports that it appeared in other countries first.
It was on December 31, 2019 that China informed to WHO about the first case of the virus. Several some experts, however, are of the view that the virus had surfaced in China much earlier.
The novel virus has resulted in over 85 million-plus cases and over 1.8 million deaths across the world.
Also Read: COVID-19 Origin Investigation: WHO Team To Visit China In January
