The World Health Organization (WHO) said Monday that the international expert team on the COVID-19 origin-tracing mission in Wuhan was “independent” and had no affiliation.
“Many times I hear that this is a WHO study or investigation. It’s not. It’s an independent study, a study which is composed of independent individuals from 10 institutions. And WHO’s role here is coordination and that’s what we should take into consideration too,” WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual press conference from Geneva.
At Monday’s press conference, Dr. Peter Ben Embarek, head of the international expert team in Wuhan, said that their report would be a “consensus document”.
The expert team, composed of 17 international scientists and 17 Chinese counterparts, are working together to publish an interim joint report, in which they would “make recommendations for future studies,” said Embarek.
He said that longer studies would be needed to “explore some of the hypotheses and advance our understanding about the origin of the virus”.
Earlier last week, the international team concluded their month-long research in Wuhan and presented their initial findings at a press conference in China, ruling out the hypothesis that the virus escaped from a laboratory.
A WHO source said that the team is working on a summary report which is expected to be published this week, and that a full final report will come out in the coming weeks. (CCTVPlus)
