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Coronavirus pandemic

WHO convinced coronavirus origins should be searched for in China’s Wuhan

According to the Executive Director of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme, the intermediate host of the virus from animals to humans is yet be determined, and it can be identified anywhere

GENEVA, July 13. /TASS/. The World Health Organization (WHO) believes that scientific methodology should be applied in studying origins of coronavirus, starting with the place where first outbreak was recorded, China’s Wuhan, Executive Director of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme Mike Ryan told a briefing in Geneva Monday.

"When it comes to investigating human disease, we need to go to the epicenter. The first clusters of the disease were in China," he noted, adding that the virus origins should be fully understood.

According to Ryan, the intermediate host of the virus from animals to humans is yet be determined, and it can be identified anywhere. "You have to go with the data and science leads. We have to follow the science," the official underlined.

"That should start where the first cluster were detected. And this was in Wuhan, in China," Ryan concluded.

In late December 2019, Chinese officials notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus - named COVID-19 by the WHO - have been reported in every corner of the globe.

On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. According to the latest statistics, over 13,000,000 people have been infected worldwide and more than 571,800 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 7,592,000 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.

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