WHO calls on China for ‘full access’ for Covid investigators: FT

The head of the World Health Organization told the Financial Times he was ready to send a new mission of experts to China to investigate the origins of Covid-19.

"We're pressing China to give full access, and we are asking countries to raise it during their bilateral meetings -- (to urge Beijing) to co-operate," Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the FT.

He said the WHO had already written to China asking "to give us information " and for the organisation to send a team "if they allow us to do so".

The international community has been unable to determine with certainty the origins of the Covid pandemic.

The first cases were detected at the end of 2019 in Wuhan, China, suggesting two opposing theories: an escape from a laboratory in the city where such viruses were being studied or an intermediate animal that infected people at a local market.