The World Health Organisation has arranged for a team of 10 international scientists to travel to Wuhan, China to investigate the origins of COVID-19, following months of negotiations with Beijing.
The aim of the investigation is not to place blame on any nation, researchers say, but to understand how to reduce the risk of future pandemics.
Although COVID-19 was initially assumed to have originated in a Wuhan wet market, it is possible that while the virus may not have originated there this was the location where it was first amplified and began to spread.