The United States Urges China To Allow The WHO Panel Team To Access A Number Of Resources In Wuhan

WHO team in China. (Thomas Peter / Reuters via Antara)

JAKARTA - The United States urges China to allow the World Health Organization (WHO) Expert Panel Team to interview nurses, former patients and laboratory workers regarding COVID-19 in the center of Wuhan City.

Previously, the desire to conduct this interview was opposed by Beijing. In fact, interviews are needed to determine the origin of the corona virus. The team itself arrived in Wuhan on January 14.

Garrett Grigsby from the Department of Health and Human Services who headed 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 the SARS-CoV-2 virus emerged at the end. 2019.

"Comparative analysis of such genetic data will help to find overlapping and potential sources of the outbreak that triggered the COVID-19 pandemic," he told the WHO Executive Board as reported by Al Jazeera.

"We have a serious duty to ensure that this critical investigation is credible and carried out objectively and transparently," continued Grigsby, referring to variants of the virus found in the UK, South Africa and Brazil.

The Australian delegation also asked the WHO team to have access to data, information and key locations that are relevant to the early days of the spread of COVID-19.

"There is no guaranteed answer. It is a difficult task to fully determine its origins and it sometimes takes two or three or four attempts to be able to do it in different settings," WHO Chief of Emergency Mike Ryan said last week.

Meanwhile, Director General of the Health Emergency Response Office of the Chinese National Health Commission, Sun Yang, said everything needed to be coordinated and without any political pressure.

"The study of the origin of the virus is scientific in nature, it needs coordination, cooperation. We must stop any political pressure," he said.