WHO says expert team heads to China in January

PTI, Dec 19, 2020, 8:36 AM IST

Geneva: The head of emergencies at the World Health Organisation says a team of international experts looking into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic will travel to China the first week of January.

Dr Michael Ryan says there will be quarantine arrangements for the team, which will visit the suspected site of the outbreak in the city of Wuhan.

“The purpose of the mission is to go to the original point at which human cases were detected and that we fully expect to do that,” he said.

He says the team of international experts will work “with our Chinese colleagues,” and he adds they “will not be … supervised by Chinese officials.”

Ryan says the world should celebrate the arrival of vaccines, but the “next three to six months are going to be tough.”

He seemed to allude the Americas, which is home to roughly three-fourths of the global cases. He says it is likely transmission will intensify in countries already dealing with surges in cases.

The United States leads the world with 17.3 confirmed cases and 312,000 confirmed deaths. Brazil follows with 184,000 reported deaths and Mexico has 116,000 deaths.