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The United States says interviews with those who worked on the front lines at the start of the crisis are crucial to the credibility of the WHO investigation.
The United States urged China on Monday to allow a team of experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) to interview “caregivers, former patients and laboratory workers” in the central city of Wuhan, blaming Beijing.
The WHO expert group trying to determine the origins of the novel coronavirus arrived in Wuhan on January 14, where they are holding online conferences with Chinese counterparts for a two-week quarantine before starting fieldwork .
The United States, which accused China of hiding the extent of its initial outbreak, called for a “transparent” investigation led by the WHO and criticized the conditions of the visit, in which Chinese experts have carried out the first phase of research.
Garrett Grigsby of the Department of Health and Human Services, who heads the US delegation, said China should share all scientific studies on animal, human and environmental samples taken from the Huanan market in Wuhan, where the first cases linked to SARS-CoV- 2 virus appeared in late 2019.
A comparative analysis of this genetic data would help “seek out overlaps and potential sources” of the outbreak that triggered the COVID-19 pandemic, he told the WHO Executive Board.
“We have a solemn duty to ensure that this critical investigation is credible and is conducted in an objective and transparent manner,” said Grigsby, who also referred to the virus variants found in Britain, South Africa and Brazil. .
Sun Yang, director general of the health emergency response office of China’s National Health Commission, told the council, “The studies on the origin of the virus are scientific in nature. He needs coordination, cooperation. We must stop all political pressure. “
The Australian delegation also called on the WHO team to have access to “relevant key data, information and locations”.
“There is no guarantee of answers,” WHO emergency chief Mike Ryan said last Friday. “It is difficult to fully establish the origins and it sometimes takes two, three or four attempts to be able to do it in different contexts.”
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