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BEIJING, May 5-- Dr. Gauden Galea, WHO representative in China, Tuesday told Xinhua that the World Health Organization (WHO) and China jointly identified a set of knowledge gaps on the animal source of the COVID-19 virus in February and that Chinese studies to fill these gaps will be crucial to helping prevent similar outbreaks in the future. "China has the clinical, epidemiological, and laboratory capacity to conduct such studies," said Dr. Galea. The WHO announced on May 1 that its Emergency Committee unanimously agreed that the current outbreak remains a "public health emergency of international concern" and suggested that WHO work with the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to help identify the animal source of the virus. This recommendation from the Emergency Committee follows its advice to WHO and China on January 23 and January 30 to pursue efforts to identify the animal source of the outbreak. "All the currently available evidence suggests that the virus is naturally occurring rather than manipulated or constituted by a human," said Dr. Galea, adding that many researchers have been able to look at the genomic features of the virus and have found that evidence does not support that it is a laboratory construct. The WHO is not involved in studies done in China and is willing to participate in studying the origin of the COVID-19 virus with other international partners at the invitation of the Chinese government, he said. | 
