Dr. Peter Ben Embarek, head of the international expert team in Wuhan, said their report on the findings will be a “consensus ”
A man registers to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, in Colombo on Tuesday. PIC/AFP
The World Health Organization (WHO) has said that the international expert team on the COVID-19 origin-tracing mission in Wuhan was “independent” and had no affiliation. “So many times I hear that this is a WHO study or investigation. It’s not,” WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual press conference from Geneva, stressing that it’s an independent study which is composed of independent individuals from 10 institutions, Xinhua news agency reported.
At Monday’s press conference, Dr. Peter Ben Embarek, head of the international expert team in Wuhan, said that their report would be a “consensus document”. “The international teams and the Chinese counterparts have already agreed on the summary reports,” he said. The expert team, composed of 17 international scientists and 17 Chinese counterparts, are working together to publish an interim joint report, in which they would “make recommendations for future studies,” said Embarek. He said that longer studies would be needed to “explore some of the hypotheses and advance our understanding about the origin of the virus.”
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Leader of China’s vaccine racket held
The leader of a multi-million dollar scam that passed off saline solution and mineral water as COVID-19 vaccines has been arrested in China. The man, identified as Kong, had researched the packaging designs of real vaccines before making more than 58,000 of his own concoctions, the BBC reported on Tuesday. A batch of the vaccines were smuggled overseas, but it is not known where they were sent to. Kong is among 70 people who have been arrested for similar crimes.
WTO chief vows to fight pandemic
New World Trade Organization (WTO) chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has vowed to tackle her top priorities of fighting against the COVID-19 pandemic and promoting the free flow of vaccines, breaking the logjam in the dispute settlement mechanism and reaching a deal to cut fisheries subsidies. Nigeria’s Okonjo-Iweala was appointed as the seventh director-general of the WTO.
1,04,929
No. of new cases reported globally in the past 24 hours
10,92,46,204
Total no. of cases worldwide
2,410,455
Total no. of deaths worldwide
Source: WHO/Johns Hopkins
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