World health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Tuesday (Jan. 5) that he was “disappointed” that Chinese officials had not yet given final approval for a team of experts to enter China to investigate the source of the new coronavirus.
Speaking at a news conference in Geneva, Tandse said members of an international scientific team had begun leaving their country for China within the past 24 hours under arrangements between the WHO and the Chinese government.
“Today, we learned that Chinese officials have not yet finalized the necessary permits for this team to arrive in China,” Tandse said.
He said, “I am disappointed by the news that two members have already begun their trip and others were unable to depart at the last minute but have been in contact with senior Chinese officials.”
Tandse said he made it “clear” that the mission was a priority for WHO and he was assured that “China is expediting internal procedures” to get those personnel deployed as soon as possible.
“We are anxious to get this mission started as soon as possible,” he said.
Michael Ryan, head of emergency programs at the World Health Organization, said the operation to send the team of experts is expected to begin Tuesday, but they have not yet received the required clearances, including visa approvals.
He said two experts from the WHO team had originally departed, one of whom has now turned back and the other is in the process of transferring to a third country.
The experts from around the world are expected to travel to Wuhan, where the new coronavirus outbreak was first detected more than a year ago.
A WHO advance team investigating the origin of the virus arrived in China early last July, but they were unable to travel to Wuhan.
Ryan said Tandse had “taken immediate action” and had spoken with unnamed senior Chinese officials to “make them fully aware of the absolute importance of this.
He said, “We hope that this is just a logistical and bureaucratic issue that can be resolved quickly.”
The U.N. health agency has been strongly criticized by President Donald Trump and other U.S. officials. Washington has criticized the WHO and its leader, Tandezai, for being too accommodating to the Chinese Communist Party and for giving excessive praise to the Chinese government for its handling of the initial outbreak of the new coronavirus.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi recently claimed in an interview with Chinese official media that the outbreak was “likely to be a multi-point outbreak in many places around the world.
The Associated Press previously reported, citing internal Communist Party documents, that top Chinese officials had quietly ordered strict controls on all research related to the New Coronavirus disease and secretly searched for the origin of the virus.
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