China has claimed that coronavirus originated in Spain. This comes at a time when the World Health Organisation (WHO) is beginning to prepare for its investigation to find the exact origins of the novel coronavirus.
The Asian country has come under criticism for the way it handled the coronavirus outbreak after it was first reported in Wuhan. Many experts and authorities have dubbed that the new coronavirus, SARS-Cov-2 came from Wuhan's lab.
There are conspiracy theories that say, China purposefully released the virus, while others majorly say that the virus might have been released accidentally from the lab in question. However, the lab's officials have answered such allegations.
WHO Investigation
Now, the country's officials say that WHO's investigation should not be based on a single country as the UN organization's assignment comprising of animal experts and epidemiologists is set to fly to China in order to "set up an international mission" in exploring COVID-19's origins.
A Barcelona based research previously detected the novel coronavirus in wastewater sample from March 2019, that's nine months before COVID-19 infections were reported in China.
Should Cover More Countries
A senior government health adviser, Wang Guangfa said that it suggested the coronavirus originated in Europe, way before it came to China. Chinese scientists have supported the view that WHO's investigation should cover more countries, reports 7 News.
"Identifying the source of the coronavirus must be based on negotiations and involve multiple countries," said chief epidemiologist for the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as reported by Global Times.
"It does not matter which country the scientific identification work starts with, as long as it involves all related countries and is fairly conducted." Over 11 million cases of COVID-19 have been reported across the world so far, while 5.83 million patients have recovered and more than 525,000 people have died.
