GENEVA (Reuters) – The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday that its newly formed advisory group on dangerous pathogens may be “our last chance” to determine the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and called for cooperation from China.
Maria van Kerkhove, WHO technical lead on COVID-19, voiced hope that there would be further WHO-led international missions to China which required its cooperation. Reports of China doing tests for antibodies present in Wuhan residents in 2019 will be “absolutely critical” to understand the virus origins, she said.
Mike Ryan, WHO’s top emergency expert, told the news conference that it may be the last chance to establish the origin of SARS-CoV-2, “a virus that has stopped our whole world”.
(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva and Pushkala Aripaka in Bengaluru)
