Families Of COVID-19 Victims In China Demand To Meet The WHO Research Team

ILLUSTRATION (Unsplash / Javad Esmaelli)

JAKARTA - A relative of the COVID-19 victim in China demands to meet with the World Health Organization (WHO) team which is conducting research. The WHO team is said to have spoken with families affected by COVID-19 because their voices were silenced by the Chinese government.

China agreed to the visit of researchers under the auspices of the UN agency after months of negotiations. There is no indication yet whether the experts will be allowed to gather evidence or speak to the family. There are only reports of the team being able to exchange views with Chinese scientists.

"I hope that WHO experts do not become a tool for spreading lies", said Zhang Hai, whose father died of COVID-19 in February 2020 after traveling from Wuhan.

"We continue to search for the truth relentlessly. This is a criminal act and I don't want WHO to come to China to cover up this crime", he added.

Quoting The Guardian, Wednesday, January 27, 2021, the WHO team arrived in Wuhan on January 14, 2021, to investigate the origin of the coronavirus. They are expected to start fieldwork this week after a 14-day quarantine.

Zhang, a Wuhan native living in Shenzhen, has orchestrated demands from relatives of COVID-19 victims in China to hold Wuhan authorities accountable. Many Chinese people are angry that at the beginning of its appearance, officials underestimated the virus.

Relatives faced enormous pressure from the authorities not to speak up. The officials have rejected the lawsuit, interrogated Mr. Zhang and others many times. They were also threatened if they spoke to foreign media.

Zhang said that the chat group for the relatives of the COVID-19 victims was closed not long after the WHO team arrived in Wuhan. He accused the city government of trying to silence them.

"Don't pretend that we don't exist, that we are not seeking accountability," said Zhang. "You have removed all of our platforms, but we still want to tell everyone through the media that we have not given up".

The WHO said its visit to China was a scientific mission to investigate the origin of the virus, not an attempt to blame. The WHO team also said that "interviews and in-depth reviews" of early cases were needed.

China initially rejected demands for an international investigation after the Donald Trump administration blamed China for the virus. But it finally bowed to global pressure in May 2020 and approved an investigation into the origin of the new coronavirus.

But the mission was repeatedly put off by negotiations and setbacks, one of which sparked an unusual public complaint by WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

The arrival of the WHO mission has reignited controversy over whether China allowed the virus to spread globally by reacting too slowly in the early days. From the start WHO officials have been trying to get more cooperation from China, with limited success.

Audio recordings of the WHO internal meeting obtained by the Associated Press and broadcast for the first time show that although WHO praises China in public, officials complain privately about not getting enough information. UN agencies do not have law enforcement powers so must rely on the goodwill of member states.

Keiji Fukuda, a public health expert at the University of Hong Kong, said the visit was an "image-building mission" in addition to a scientific mission. China wants to appear transparent and WHO wants to show its action.

"Both China and the WHO are hoping to get some points", said Fukuda, who is a former WHO official. “But it all depends on what the team has access to. Will they really be able to ask the question they want to ask?"