The World Health Organization (WHO) will soon send an expert mission to China aiming to determine the origin of the novel coronavirus, WHO Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a briefing in Geneva Tuesday.

Axar.az reports citing foreign media.

"Over the past few months, there has been a lot of discussion about the origins of COVID-19," he stressed. "All preparations have been finalized and WHO experts will be traveling to #China on the next available flight to prepare scientific plans with their Chinese counterparts for identifying the zoonotic source of COVID-19."

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus emphasized that the specialists will focus on laying down a basis and a plan of works for the international mission headed by the WHO. "The mission objective is to advance the understanding of animal hosts for COVID-19 and ascertain how the disease jumped between animals to humans," he noted.