WHO advance team ends visit to China to probe COVID origin
Geneva: The World Health Organisation said on Monday that an advance team looking into the origins of the COVID-19 outbreak has concluded its mission in China, and the UN health agency is preparing the deployment of a larger group of experts to the suspected outbreak zone.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the international team will deploy to Wuhan, the city where the pandemic is believed to have erupted late last year. Tedros said terms of reference have been drawn up by the WHO and China, but he did not specify.
The WHO advance team that traveled to China has now concluded their mission to lay the groundwork for further joint efforts to identify the virus' origins, he told a news conference.
Epidemiological studies will begin in Wuhan to identify the potential source of infection of the early cases.He said evidence and hypothesis generated from the work would lay the ground for further, longer-term studies.
The comments came amid an increasingly heavy toll from the pandemic in the United States, Brazil and India, as investigators seek to clarify the origins of the virus and how it may have jumped from animals to humans late last year.
Dr Michael Ryan, the WHO's emergencies chief, noted gaps in the epidemiological landscape and said it would be assessed what studies to conduct and what data to collect. He said the two-person advance team had not returned from China, and had not been debriefed yet.
The real trick is to go to the human clusters that occurred first and then to work your way back systematically looking for that first signal at which the animal human species barrier was crossed, Ryan said.
Once you understand where that the barrier was breached, then you move into the studies in a more systematic way on the animal side, The WHO press office, contacted by The Associated Press after the news conference, did not provide details of the terms of reference, say whether they would be made public, or indicate how big the international team would be or when it could be sent to China.
It said team members had extensive discussions with their Chinese counterparts during the three-week visit, and had discussions by video with virologists and other scientists in Wuhan including the Wuhan Institute of Virology.US President Donald Trump in April claimed to have seen evidence to support the theory that the lab was the origin of the virus.
On Sunday, Dr Deborah Birx, the White House top coronavirus adviser, said the virus was extraordinarily widespread in the US and infections in urban and rural America marked a new phase for the pandemic in the country.
Ryan, asked to comment about such remarks, said he didn't believe the intention was to create a sense of a new phase ... but to really remind all states that the disease never went away.
It's not our job to tell the US what it should be doing at sub-national level: The state-based planning and implementation guided by the national scientists seems to be (on) the right path, Ryan added. The difficulty for us all is: sometimes we know the right path. The difficulty is choosing to walk it.
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Rupee falls 11 paise to 94.27 against US dollar in early trade
Mumbai (PTI): The rupee depreciated 11 paise to 94.27 against US dollar in early trade on Monday driven by persistent dollar demand and a broader shift toward safe-haven assets.
Forex traders said the Indian rupee has hit a rough patch, falling for five consecutive sessions, weighed down by a combination of factors such as the RBI loosening its grip on currency rules and rising oil prices caused by global tensions.
Moreover, investors are becoming cautious again, with foreign institutions pulling money out of the market after a brief period of buying amid rising geopolitical uncertainty.
At the interbank foreign exchange market the rupee opened at 94.25 against the US dollar, then lost some ground and touched 94.27 against the US dollar in initial trade, registering a fall of 11 paise over its previous close. On Friday, the rupee had settled at 94.16 against the American currency.
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Meanwhile, the dollar index, which gauges the greenback's strength against a basket of six currencies, was down 0.09 per cent at 98.44.
Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, was trading higher by 1.16 per cent at USD 106.55 per barrel in futures trade.
A mix of softer economic signals and renewed, even if fragile, hopes of diplomacy pulled the dollar lower again, CR Forex Advisors MD Amit Pabari said, adding that for Rupee, on one hand, a softer dollar offers relief. On the other, uncertainty remains the dominant force.
Meanwhile, India’s forex reserves have crossed USD 703 billion as of April 17, reflecting a consistent build-up of buffers.
"For now, the rupee continues to lean toward gradual weakness. Uncertainty remains the dominant force, shaping both global flows and local reactions," Pabari said.
He further noted that any dips are likely to be bought into, with the 92.80–93.20 zone acting as a strong support. On the upside, 93.50 to 94.50 is expected to define the near-term range.
On the domestic equity market front, the 30-share benchmark index Sensex was trading 518.96 points or 0.68 per cent higher at 77,183.17, while the broader Nifty was trading up 131.30 points or 0.55 per cent at 24,029.25.
Foreign Institutional Investors offloaded equities worth Rs 8,827.87 crore on Friday, according to exchange data.
