China agrees to WHO's probe on origins of Covid

July 08, 2020 17:40

"After consultation, the Chinese government has agreed that WHO will send a team of experts to Beijing to trace the origin of COVID19," Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian said today.

Dr Soumya Swaminathan, Chief Scientist, WHO told news agency ANI last week that a "thorough investigation" needs to be done into the origins of the virus. She said that the WHO has been working with the Chinese government for the visit.

"A team is going to China next week to investigate the origins of the virus," Swaminathan told ANI.

"What is needed now is a good investigation going back before December to find out where and how it jumped from animal to human. Was there any intermediate animal or not or it directly jumped from bat to humans which are also possible? Bats have been implicated in other viral diseases -- Nipah for example. It is possible it came directly. It is also possible that there was an intermediate animal-like in the case of SARS. That thorough investigation still needs to be done," she said.

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