The World Health Organization (WHO) yesterday announced the composition of the team that will investigate the origin of SARSCOV-2, which causes Covid-19, as well as new infectious viruses that may emerge.
The team consists of 26 experts from diverse fields such as epidemiology, animal health, ecology, clinical medicine, virology, molecular biology, and other specialists. Its members come from countries such as the United States, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Russia, Germany, China, and Japan.
The team chosen from a pool of 700 applicants will form the Scientific Advisory Group for origins of novel pathogens and aims to advise the WHO on the origins of infectious agents.
"The emergence of new viruses with the potential to trigger epidemics and pandemics is a fact of nature, and although SARS-CoV-2 is the most recent virus, it will not be the last," said WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus, quoted by Lusa news agency.
The WHO director-general believes it is important to understand the origin of new pathogens in order to prevent future outbreaks with epidemic and pandemic potential. He also says that this requires a wide range of knowledge.
"We are very pleased with the caliber of experts selected. We look forward to working with them to make the world a safer place," he added.
The new members will still be subject to a final evaluation, in which the WHO will also take into account the results of a two-week public consultation on the candidates.
The investigation into the origin of the virus that causes covid-19 has been a constant goal of the WHO, which sent, as early as February and then in July 2020, two teams of experts to China, namely to the city of Wuhan, where the first case of the disease was detected.
In January of this year, another team of ten WHO researchers and experts traveled to China to investigate the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, but China continued to make it difficult to gather information, such as the name of the first covid-19 fatality, and to enter the market in Wuhan, considered to be the first major focus of the pandemic.
The team eventually left China in mid-February, pointing to two preliminary theories about the origins of the virus: through an animal that served as an intermediate host for humans or through some frozen food.
This second theory was advocated by China repeatedly during the first months of the pandemic after traces of the virus were detected in some frozen products imported by the Asian country.
Source: Lusa