China is reportedly currently conducting its own investigations into the cause of coronavirus but has blocked the World Health Organisation (WHO) from joining the probes.
WHO representative in Beijing Dr Gauden Galea said Thursday that it has not been invited by China to join the investigation but he expected China would discuss collaborations with the organization in the "near future."
"We know some national investigation is happening but at this stage we have not been invited to join. We are expecting to get, in the near future, a briefing on where that is and to discuss possible collaboration," Galea said.
WHO says it wants to take part in Beijing's probe into the origins of COVID-19.
"WHO would be keen to work with international partners and at the invitation of the Chinese government to participate in an investigation around the animal origins [of COVID-19]" WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic told VOA in an email.
"It is our understanding that a number of investigations to better understand the source of the outbreak in China are currently underway or planned, including investigations of human cases with symptom onset in and around Wuhan in late 2019, " said Jasarevic. But "WHO is not currently involved in the studies in China."
Beijing has been criticized for a lack of transparency in its handling of the pandemic. The official tally of infections in Wuhan has been questionable from the very beginning with the government frequently changing its counting criteria at the peak of the outbreak. In the United States, authorities are investigating whether the virus might have spread from a sophisticated Wuhan laboratory that studies coronaviruses.
Meanwhile, China has strongly dismissed the possibility that the coronavirus pandemic originated in the lab.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said Thursday that any claims that the coronavirus was released from a laboratory are "purely fabricated out of nothing." Geng cited the lab's director, Yuan Zhiming, as saying the lab strictly implements bio-security procedures that would prevent the release of any pathogen. Geng in the meantime did say the issue, "should be studied by scientists and professionals."
In February, a joint mission of Chinese and WHO experts visited Wuhan and other cities in China to assess Beijing's epidemic prevention and control efforts. But WHO investigators are not participating in the current inquiry into the virus origins being conducted in China.
Jasarevic emphasized to VOA that the results of such probes "are essential" to preventing further outbreaks. He said WHO continues to collaborate with "countries and other partners to identify gaps and research priorities for the control of COVID-19, including the eventual identification of the source of the virus in China."
WHO spokesman also weighed in on another critical issue with regard to the origin of COVID-19. Scientists suspect the killer virus jumped from animals to humans, possibly through an intermediate animal host. This is one of the biggest puzzle pieces in tracing the coronavirus origin.
In his email to VOA Friday, the WHO spokesman said since there is usually limited close contact between humans and bats, "It is more likely that transmission of the virus from bats to humans happened through another animal species, one that is more likely to be handled by humans."
The coronavirus disease COVID-19, which originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan, has taken over 230,000 human lives worldwide, according to a collection of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, and confirmed infection cases have reached 3.2 million.
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