Skip to main content
Premium Trial:

Request an Annual Quote

Not Yet There

China is preventing the arrival of a World Health Organization team investigating the origins of SAR-CoV-2, the Guardian reports, adding that visas for some team members were not yet approved.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the WHO, expressed disappointment regarding the situation, according to the Guardian. It adds that the WHO's Mike Ryan hopes the issue can be resolved quickly.

The WHO announced that it would be sending a team of investigators to Wuhan, China, where SAR-CoV-2 emerged about a year ago. While the source of the virus is unknown, there are suspicions that it originated in bats, then spent time in an intermediary animal before infecting humans. For this phase of its analysis, the WHO said it would be sending investigators to the region to collect human and animal samples for testing. 

But as the Washington Post adds, political factors may hinder the investigation. Ilona Kickbusch from the Global Health Center tells the Guardian, for instance, that the trade war between the US and China trade war has morphed into a "geopolitical blame game."

Additionally, the Post notes the time it is taking the WHO to get to Wuhan will make it harder to determine the source of the virus. "It's like there was a murder and you go back to the crime scene a year later, after it was scrubbed, and you expect to find something," Lawrence Gostin from Georgetown University tells it.

The Scan

Study Examines Insights Gained by Adjunct Trio RNA Sequencing in Complex Pediatric Disease Cases

Researchers in AJHG explore the diagnostic utility of adding parent-child RNA-seq to genome sequencing in dozens of families with complex, undiagnosed genetic disease.

Clinical Genomic Lab Survey Looks at Workforce Needs

Investigators use a survey approach in Genetics in Medicine Open to assess technologist applications, retention, and workforce gaps at molecular genetics and clinical cytogenetics labs in the US.

Study Considers Gene Regulatory Features Available by Sequence-Based Modeling

Investigators in Genome Biology set sequence-based models against observational and perturbation assay data, finding distal enhancer models lag behind promoter predictions.

Genetic Testing Approach Explores Origins of Blastocyst Aneuploidy

Investigators in AJHG distinguish between aneuploidy events related to meiotic missegregation in haploid cells and those involving post-zygotic mitotic errors and mosaicism.