A WHO team of experts in Wuhan, China, “made some progress” against the Chinese Communist Party‘s virus, but “may not be able to find answers” to all questions, a WHO official said Monday. WHO officials also called for the experts to be given free access during their mission.
The AFP news agency reported that a team of international experts from the World health Organization is working in Wuhan to trace the source of the Chinese Communist virus, and the media asked at a WHO press conference Monday for information about the team’s field visits and their views on the new U.S. Secretary of State John Blinken’s comment that Beijing had performed “far less well” in allowing experts access to the site where the virus was found.
In an interview with NBC, Blinken said that to date, the Chinese Communist Party has not done enough to provide the information the international community needs about the virus. Although the World Health Organization sent investigators to Wuhan, China, to investigate the source of the virus, Beijing has “failed miserably” in allowing experts to enter the site where the virus was found, Blinken stressed. Blinken said the lack of transparency in the Chinese Communist Party is a “deep-rooted” problem that “must be addressed.
Michael Ryan, executive director of WHO’s public health emergency program, said the team’s visit has made initial progress, but the visit may not be able to answer all the questions, experts need to collect more data, and more information will have more questions, experts are currently working on.
WHO epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove said the experts have visited hospitals, seafood markets and met with officials from China’s Center for Disease Control. The itinerary also includes a trip to the Wuhan Institute of Virus Research, and she called for the experts to be given free access during the mission. The international team of experts is having fruitful discussions on the ground, but the information gathered needs to be further analyzed, Van Kerkhoven said, adding that the experts will visit the Wuhan Institute of Virus Research and that the trip is included in the program.
She further noted that the experts should be given the freedom to decide what visits they need to make during their mission and that they must be provided with space for scientific research.
The WHO team of experts began a roughly two-week field trip after ending its 14-day quarantine on Jan. 28. it traveled to Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital, where the first confirmed cases were treated, to meet with hospital staff on Jan. 30 and arrived at the South China Seafood Market on Jan. 31, one of the first sites where clusters of infections appeared more than a year ago.
AFP said the trip to Wuhan was extremely sensitive, both for the Chinese government, which is doing its best to absolve itself of responsibility for the world pandemic of the Chinese Communist virus, and for the WHO, which is said to “take orders from Beijing”.
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