Just Earth News | @justearthnews | 27 May 2021, 12:41 am Print
COVID19 Image: Pixabay
Geneva: Previously overlooked Chinese data on extensive screening of animals for coronavirus around the time the pandemic erupted is among several areas that have now been identified for further study by World Health Organization (WHO) scientists who are probing the origins of deadly virus which has ravaged nearly all corners of the globe, media reports said.
Sources told CNN the records are contained in a nearly 200-page annex posted alongside the WHO panel's March report that received little attention among global experts at the time.
But the data may add weight to calls from China's critics for more transparency and to the WHO team's desire to return to the country for further studies.
No date has been set for the team's return to China, but the source said any future visit to the country -- where the virus emerged in the city of Wuhan, Hubei province, in late 2019 -- may involve "smaller groups supporting specific studies first."
A larger group, similar to the 17 international experts that visited in January, might then follow up, the source told the American news channel.
The COVID-19 pandemic is believed to have emerged from China and it has now ravaged around all the countries across the globe.
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