The WHO team of experts, responsible for investigating the origin of the coronavirus, will begin its mission on Thursday.

It is an ultra-sensitive visit for Beijing, anxious to avoid any responsibility for the epidemic which has killed more than 1.9 million people worldwide.

The World Health Organization (WHO) team of experts to investigate the origin of the coronavirus, expected in China last week, will finally begin its mission on Thursday, the Chinese Ministry of Health announced on Monday. .

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This visit is ultra-sensitive for Beijing, anxious to avoid any responsibility for the epidemic which has killed more than 1.9 million people worldwide.

Originally scheduled last week, it was canceled at the last minute for lack of all the necessary permissions for the team.

Joint research with Chinese scientists

"After discussions, the WHO team of experts [...] will go to China from January 14 for inspections. They will conduct joint research with Chinese scientists on the origins of Covid-19", the Ministry of Health said in a brief statement.

Beijing did not provide details on how the visit would go, but investigators are expected to be quarantined upon arrival on Chinese soil.

In a rare criticism of China, the head of the WHO regretted last week that his investigators were unable to visit the country.

A visit one year after the announcement of the first death in China

The Chinese green light comes one year to the day after the announcement of the first death in China of what was still at the time a mysterious virus.

The country has since succeeded in virtually eradicating the disease from its soil.

The authorities do not miss an opportunity to cast doubts on the Chinese origin of the virus, when they had initially blamed a market in Wuhan where live animals were sold.

But Beijing could not prevent US President Donald Trump regularly accusing him of having spread "the Chinese virus" on the planet, or even of having let it escape from a virology laboratory in Wuhan, the city ​​in the center of the country where the virus appeared at the end of 2019.

A sign of nervousness, the Communist authorities sentenced a citizen journalist, Zhang Zhan, who had covered the quarantine of Wuhan at the end of December to four years in prison.