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New Delhi:
Amid international issues that China delayed giving info concerning the novel coronavirus outbreak, a group of WHO (World Health Organisation) will go to the nation subsequent week to research the origins of the virus and its unfold to human beings.
The go to will happen greater than six months after the WHO’s Country Office in China picked up a press release from the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission on instances of ”viral pneumonia”. WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus spoke in January about an settlement with China for sending a group of worldwide consultants “as soon as possible” to work on rising the understanding of the outbreak.
COVID-19 has killed over 500,000 individuals on this planet and instances and deaths are rising by the day.
In an unique interview with ANI, Dr Soumya Swaminathan, Chief Scientist, WHO stated {that a} “thorough investigation” must be accomplished into the origins of the virus.
She stated that the WHO has been working with the Chinese authorities for the go to. “A team is going to China next week to investigate the origins of the virus,” Dr Soumya Swaminathan advised ANI.
“What is needed now is a good investigation going back before December to find out where and how it jumped from animal to human. Was there any intermediate animal or not or it directly jumped from bat to humans which are also possible? Bats have been implicated in other viral diseases — Nipah for example. It is possible it came directly. It is also possible that there was an intermediate animal-like in the case of SARS. That thorough investigation still needs to be done,” she stated.
Dr Soumya Swaminathan stated that the Chinese authorities had reported an outbreak of “typical pneumonia cases” from Wuhan on December 31.
“Our WHO country office in China picked it up and on January 1, WHO activated its international mechanisms which we do as part of international health regulations whenever there’s any new signal gets reported. It is conveyed to everyone so that the whole world knows about it,” she stated.
Dr Soumya Swaminathan stated that sequences present that the virus inflicting COVID-19 is similar to bat viruses.
“We do not know more than that in the sense where and how it originated. We know from the virus sequences that it is very similar to bat viruses. A lot of studies have been done in South-East Asia to show that bats have lots of coronaviruses. There are over 500 types of coronaviruses. There are also previous studies showing that populations living in southern China and even in other countries of South-East Asia have antibodies to coronaviruses,” she stated.
The pandemic has grown to greater than 10 million instances and has brought about over 500,000 deaths internationally.
The WHO Director-General had talked on January 29 of his settlement with Chinese President Xi Jinping that the organisation would lead a group of worldwide consultants to China “as soon as possible” to work with the federal government on rising the understanding of the outbreak and to information international response efforts.
On December 31 final yr, WHO’s Country Office in China picked up a media assertion by the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission from their web site on instances of ”viral pneumonia” in Wuhan. The subsequent day, WHO requested info on the reported cluster of atypical pneumonia instances in Wuhan from the Chinese authorities.
WHO reported on January 9 that Chinese authorities have decided that the outbreak is brought on by a novel coronavirus. The organisation stated on February 11 that the illness brought on by the novel coronavirus could be named COVID-19.
There have been stories of China delaying info and warning in regards to the novel coronavirus which may have helped in containing its unfold within the preliminary days.
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