Coronavirus: what’s at stake for the WHO – and China – in the latest mission to Wuhan
- The embattled UN health agency must know what data it wants and assess what it is given without fear or favour
- China must also be prepared to accept that it is where the pathogen made the leap from animals to humans – if the evidence points to that source
The United Nations agency is facing its worst publicity crisis in decades and is under unprecedented pressure to convince its growing number of critics that it can work with China to investigate contentious issues without fear or favour.
This time, the delegation will need to do more than add some polite comments to a technical report based on information from the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention – as the first WHO mission to China did in February – if it is to silence the critics.
The WHO said the investigation would focus on the zoonotic – or animal – source of the coronavirus, formally known as Sars-CoV-2, and was sending two experts to the central Chinese city of Wuhan this weekend to discuss research parameters and data access.
Tracing the origin of a zoonotic disease requires meticulous detective work and the mission may just be the start of a long-term investigation.