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WHO expert team arrives in Wuhan to begin COVID-19 investigation

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An international expert team from the World Health Organisation (WHO) arrived in central China’s Wuhan on Thursday.

The team will carry out work to investigate the origins of the novel coronavirus and will conduct joint research with Chinese scientists.

The WHO said the team is comprised of 13 experts from ten different countries, with China’s National Health Commission saying the group will go through relevant quarantine procedures required under the country’s epidemic control measures before conducting field work.

The group’s team leader Peter Ben Embarek, a food safety and animal diseases scientist, said the team will work remotely while it completes the two-week mandatory quarantine period, after which the experts will be free to meet with their Chinese counterparts and visit different sites as part of their investigations.

China has stated it will support scientists from all over the world to jointly carry out global research into the origin and transmission of the virus, and has pledged to continue to work with the WHO and the international community to boost global cooperation in the fight against COVID-19.

China has been working closely with the WHO since the start of the outbreak and invited WHO experts to carry out cooperation on origin-tracing in February and July last year.

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