WHO team to visit China in Jan to trace COVID origin, Beijing refuses to divulge details

A World Health Organisation (WHO) team is expected to reach China this month to investigate the origin of the COVID-19 virus. This comes a year after the virus was first detected in China's Wuhan city in December 2019. China has so far been very secretive about the origin of the virus, but the world believes it originated in Wuhan and spread to humans from bats at a seafood market, which was allegedly running illegally. 

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The visit by the WHO team will be the third since the COVID-19 virus first emerged in 2019. Earlier, a WHO team had visited China in February 2020 to review the response by the local authorities. Another team had visited the country in July to prepare for the upcoming inspection later this month. The visit remains highly politicised with Beijing still refusing to confirm the date and where exactly the WHO team will be allowed to go or whom they will be able to meet. 

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Trust issues with WHO

Meanwhile, the WHO team has said it just wants to focus on the origin of the virus and will refrain from politicising the pandemic by putting the blame on the authorities. The WHO team has said that it wants to better understand the disease so that future pandemics can be prevented. The upcoming mission of WHO has also been mired in controversy with some suggesting there is no point in going to Wuhan after a year because all important pieces of evidence may have been tampered with or damaged. 

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Last year, WHO faced the wrath of the international community over allegations that the UN health body had sided with China during the start of the pandemic in whitewashing the blame. Although, WHO dismissed all allegations. But certain questions were raised that pointed towards poor handling of the situation on part of the global agency, especially at its mission in China. 

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