WHO Photo:VCG
As agreed by the two sides, the World Health Organization (WHO) will send experts to China on Thursday and work with Chinese experts to investigate the origin of COVID-19, said China's National Health Commission (NHC).
The details of the group's itinerary have not been publicized.
This arrangement indicates that China has always been open, supportive and positive toward the WHO's investigations, Wang Guangfa, a respiratory expert at Peking University First Hospital, told the Global Times on Monday.
Wang said the investigation into the origin is very important for people to find the means, conditions and characteristics of the virus transmission, and will help control the pandemic and prevent similar viruses from infecting human beings in the future.
The investigation will not be completed overnight, and requires the cooperation of all countries, Wang noted, and China, as the first country to discover the virus, takes the responsibility in assisting the WHO to carry out investigations.
Wang said that WHO experts are likely to visit other countries where the coronavirus emerged earlier than China.
Zeng Yixin, a deputy head of the National Health Commission, said at a Saturday conference that China has been supportive of the WHO's investigations into the origin of the coronavirus and has held four video conferences on details of the investigation, and reached an agreement with the agency.
In February 2020, a WHO expert team that included US experts arrived in Beijing and visited South China's Guangdong Province and Southwest China's Sichuan Province to research China's prevention and control work on the novel coronavirus.