The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said he is ready to send a new mission of experts to China to find out the origin of Covid-19, asking for “full access”, according to France Presse.

“We are pressing China to grant full access and we are asking countries to raise this issue in their bilateral meetings (to encourage Beijing) to cooperate,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the Financial Times.

He explained that the WHO has already written to China “to provide us with information (…) and we are ready to send a team if they allow us to do so.”

The international community cannot yet determine with certainty the origin of Covid.

Although the first cases were detected in late 2019 in Wuhan, China, there are two opposing theories: an escape from a laboratory in the city where such viruses were researched, or an intermediate animal that infected people who frequented a local market.

A group of experts led by the WHO, accompanied by Chinese colleagues, conducted an investigation in China in early 2021. In a joint report, they supported the hypothesis that the highly contagious virus was transmitted to humans by an animal that acted as an intermediary between bats and humans, possibly at a market in the city of Wuhan.

Tedros later said that “all hypotheses remain on the table.”

Neither team was able to return to China, and WHO officials repeatedly requested more data. Tedros has repeatedly said the WHO has no intention of stopping research and has repeatedly called on Beijing to “be transparent in sharing information, carry out the necessary research and share the results”.