WHO scientists to travel to China this weekend to investigate the origins of the coronavirus

World Health Organization scientists and experts are scheduled to travel to China this weekend to investigate the origins of the novel coronavirus, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced on Tuesday.

"The experts will develop the scope and terms of reference for a WHO-led international mission. The mission objective is to advance the understanding of animal hosts for Covid-19 and ascertain how the disease jumped between animals and humans," Tedros said. "WHO will continue to communicate the latest scientific advances to the media and general public as we have them." 

Specifically, experts will be seeking to trace the narrative of how the coronavirus might have spread from the wild to possibly farm animals to humans, said Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO's Health Emergencies Program.

"There is the wild animal kingdom, there is the farmed animal kingdom, there are interfaces with humans," Ryan said. "So we need to understand the track of this virus."

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