WUHAN, China (AP) – A family member of a coronavirus victim in China is demanding to meet with a visiting expert team from the World Health Organization and says it should talk to affected families who claim to be by the Chinese government be muted.
China only approved the visit by researchers under the auspices of the UN agency after months of negotiations. It did not indicate whether they would be allowed to gather evidence or speak to families, saying only that the team could exchange views with Chinese scientists.
“I hope the WTO experts do not become a tool to spread lies,” said Zhang Hai, whose father died of COVID-19 on February 1, 2020, after traveling to the Chinese city of Wuhan and becoming infected. has. “We have been relentlessly searching for the truth. It was a criminal act, and I do not want the WHO to come to China to cover up these crimes. ”
The Chinese Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The WHO team, which arrived in Wuhan on January 14 to investigate the origin of the virus, is expected to start fielding later this week after a 14-day quarantine.
Zhang, a Wuhan resident who now lives in the southern city of Shenzhen, has arranged for relatives of coronavirus victims in China to claim responsibility from officials.
Many are angry because the state has underestimated the virus at the beginning of the outbreak, and tried to file lawsuits against the Wuhan government.
The family members came under tremendous pressure from authorities not to speak out. Officials have rejected the lawsuits, repeatedly questioning Zhang and others and threatening to fire relatives of those who speak to the foreign media, according to interviews with Zhang and other family members.
Zhang said conversation groups of the family members were closed shortly after the arrival of the WTO team in Wuhan, and he accused the city government of trying to silence them.
“Do not pretend that we do not exist, and that we do not seek accountability,” Zhang said. “You have wiped out all our platforms, but we still want to let the media know that we have not given up.”
The WHO says its visit to China is a scientific mission to investigate the origin of the virus, not an attempt to plead guilty, and that ‘in-depth interviews and reviews’ of early cases are necessary. It did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
China initially rejected demands for an international investigation after the Trump administration blamed Beijing for the virus, but bowed to global pressure in May for an investigation into its origins.
Anthony Fauci, the leading infectious disease officer in the United States, told the World Economic Forum on Monday that the origin of the virus that brought the world to its knees is still unknown, “a large black box, which is terrible. . ”
The mission was repeatedly delayed by negotiations and setbacks, one of which resulted in the unusual public complaint of the WHO chief.
The advent of the WTO mission has revived the controversy over whether China allowed the virus to spread worldwide by reacting too slowly in the early days.
WHO officials have tried from the outset to gain more cooperation from China, with limited success.
Audio recordings of internal WHO meetings obtained by The Associated Press and broadcast for the first time on Tuesday, shows that even though the WHO praised China in public, officials complained privately because they did not get enough information.
The UN agency has no enforcement powers, and therefore must rely on the goodwill of member states.
Keiji Fukuda, a public health expert at the University of Hong Kong, called the visit an “image-building mission”, with China keen to be transparent and the WHO eager to show that it is taking action.
“Both China and the WHO are hoping to get some brownie points,” said Fukuda, a former WHO official. ‘But it comes down to what the team will have access to. Will they really be able to ask the questions they want to ask? ”
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Kang reported from Beijing.