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The research team wants to be able to access preliminary data on cases of illnesses registered in China before December 2019, such as pneumonia, influenza or fever that could in fact be cases of Covid-19.
On Saturday, an expert from the World Health Organization expressed frustration at the inability to access the initial data during his team’s investigation in China to discover the origin of the Corona virus, indicating the need for more information on the former. possible infections. .
“We want more data. We request more data” from China, Peter Bin Mubarak, who led the team of experts sent by the World Health Organization to Wuhan, China, told AFP.
He added: “There is a mixture of frustration mixed also with realistic expectations about what can be achieved within a certain period of time”, regarding getting to the origin of the virus. He added that he hopes to obtain the required data from the Chinese authorities.
The organization’s four-week mission to China to reveal the source of the Corona virus ended the weekend without conclusive conclusions.
Experts believe that the epidemic that has killed some 2.4 million people worldwide originated in bats and may have been transmitted to humans through another animal.
But although the virus was detected in Wuhan in December 2019, it is unclear if this was really the place and date of its first appearance and when.
Bin Mubarak indicated that the team wanted to be able to access preliminary data on cases of illnesses registered in China before December 2019, such as pneumonia, influenza or fever that could in fact be cases of Covid-19.
Before the mission arrived, Chinese scientists had identified 72,000 such cases recorded between October and December 2019.
And they established a series of criteria to determine if it was Covid-19 infections, leaving only 92 cases worthy of study. And only 67 of those cases were available for serological testing, all of which were negative for infection with the coronavirus.
Bin Mubarak claimed that his team tried unsuccessfully to request the specific criteria that were used in this process.
He said: “We are trying to understand the process by which the number was reduced from 72 thousand to 92”, and pointed out that access to the initial data required will allow the organization to establish “less strict criteria to allow us to have a greater number (of suspected cases of disease) from where to proceed “to study the origin of the Virus.
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