“I have been in contact with senior Chinese officials and once again I have made it clear that the mission is a priority for the WHO,” he said of the trip that he said took place with Beijing. The mission was to be led by Peter Ben Embarek, the WHO’s leading expert on animal diseases that cross the species barrier, who went to China on a preliminary mission last July.
Two members of the international team had already started their trip to China. One has returned and the other is in transit to a third country, emergency chief Mike Ryan said. However, he added: “We trust and hope that it is just a logistical and bureaucratic issue that can be resolved very quickly.”
Before the trip, Beijing has been seeking to shape the narrative about when and where the pandemic started, and senior diplomat Wang Yi said “more and more studies” showed it emerged in multiple regions. Ryan has previously called this “highly speculative.”
China has dismissed criticism for its handling of the first cases that emerged in late 2019, although some, including US President Donald Trump, have questioned Beijing’s actions during the outbreak.
Washington, which has announced plans to leave the WHO, has called for a “transparent” investigation and criticized the terms under which Chinese experts carried out the first phase of the investigation.
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