China blocked the arrival of a World Health Organization team investigating the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, claiming that their visas had not yet been approved, although some members of the group were on their way.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus expressed his dismay and said he asked China to allow the team in. “I am very disappointed with this news, as two members have already started their travels and others were unable to travel at the last minute,” he said.
“But I have been in contact with senior Chinese officials. And again I made it clear that the mission is a priority for WHO and the international team. “
WHO has been trying to send a team of global experts from several countries for a few months. She has been talking to Chinese officials since July. Scientists have long said it is essential to find out how the virus spread to species in humans.
The China expedition was going to Wuhan to investigate the first cases. He did not intend to investigate claims that the virus originated in a Chinese laboratory, which was rejected by most scientists.
The mission was criticized by the U.S., where outgoing President Donald Trump categorically blamed the Chinese for the pandemic.
Garrett Grigsby, of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, said in November that the investigation appeared “inconsistent” with the WHO mandate. “Understanding the origins of Covid-19 through transparent and inclusive research is what must be done to fulfill the mandate.”
Dr Mike Ryan of WHO said the team has been working closely with Chinese colleagues in planning the trip.
“We were all operating with the understanding that the team will start implementing today [Tuesday],” he said.
Two team members, who had to travel a long distance, began their travels, he said, but it was clear that their visas were not approved by Chinese authorities.
“We didn’t want to put people on the air unnecessarily if there was no guarantee of success on arrival in China,” said Ryan. “Dr. Tedros took immediate action and talked to senior Chinese officials and left them totally impressed by the absolute critical nature of this.”
The team hoped it was “just a logistical and bureaucratic issue that can be resolved very quickly”. One of the two colleagues on the way had returned, while the other remained in a third country in transit.
“This is frustrating and, as the director general said, disappointing. This disappointment was expressed very clearly by Dr. Tedros directly to our counterparts in China. We believe that, in good faith, we will be able to resolve these problems in the next few hours and restart the deployment of the team as urgently as possible, ”said Ryan.
Ilona Kickbusch, founding director and president of the Global Health Center in Geneva, said that geopolitics has hindered the union of countries to defeat the coronavirus pandemic and the hostilities that have now been generated may hinder the discovery of how it started.
“I think it will be very difficult to find the source of the virus, because a lot of time has passed,” said Kickbusch.
The world managed to come together to eradicate smallpox at the height of the cold war, she stressed. Even when SARS, another coronavirus, emerged in China and wreaked havoc between 2002 and 2003, the global reaction was one of cooperation and pressure for more transparency.
At that time, Beijing acknowledged that it made mistakes, reorganized its health ministry and created the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Other countries have given him the benefit of the doubt and called for more cooperation.
“Sars really took to China [understanding] that they needed to be much more integrated into the [global] system, ”said Kickbusch. “It was an opening period.” But now, she said, “There is a closing of the mind, very clearly, on all sides.”
Before the crisis, geopolitical tensions affected the global health response, she said, pointing out how the US-China trade war turned into a “geopolitical blame game”. As a result, “China has totally repressed [and] the US did what it did ”and in the end“ the whole world suffered ”.