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WHO Experts Arrive in China to Probe COVID-19 Origins

John Xie

   An advance team from the World Health Organization(WHO)has arrived in
   China to prepare an investigation into the origins of the coronavirus
   pandemic.

   The virus that causes COVID-19, which is believed to have started in
   animals before jumping to humans, first emerged in a since-shuttered
   wholesale market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year.

   Two Geneva-based WHO experts, specialists in animal health and
   epidemiology, will meet their Chinese counterparts in Beijingon
   Saturday to "develop the scope and terms" ofthe inquiry,said
   TarikJaÅ¡areviÄ, a WHO spokesperson.

   "The objective is to advance the understanding of animal hosts for
   COVID-19 and ascertain how the disease jumped between animals and
   humans,"JaÅ¡areviÄtold VOA.

   "That's why we're sending an animal health expert ... to look at
   whether or not it jumped from species to a human and what species it
   jumped from," WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris said at a Friday press
   briefing in Geneva.

   "We know it's very, very similar to the virus in the bat, but did it go
   through an intermediate species? This is a question we all need
   answered," she said.

   The investigation comes at a politically sensitive time, as the
   administration of President Donald Trump begins the process of
   withdrawing the United States from the WHO, a move that could hurt the
   U.N.agency's coronavirus pandemic response and reshape public health
   diplomacy.

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