China is still in consultations with the World Health Organization (WHO) on a trip for WHO experts to visit the country and examine the origins of COVID-19, said Hua Chunying, a spokesperson from the Foreign Ministry on Wednesday.

In a positive and constructive manner, China recently has been in close communication with the WHO on the international expert panel's trip to China for cooperation on tracing the origin of the novel coronavirus, said Hua.

At present, the global pandemic situation is still very grave, and China is also making all-out efforts to prevent and control the epidemic with its health and epidemic prevention departments and experts devoting themselves to intense containment work.

"In order to support international anti-pandemic cooperation, China has overcome difficulties, accelerated preparations at home, and tried its best to create favorable conditions for the international panel's visit for origin tracing cooperation in China," said the spokesperson. "WHO knows that clearly."

Origin-tracing is a very complicated issue, Hua said. "To ensure the smooth progress of the work of the international panel in China, necessary procedures should be fulfilled and relevant specific arrangements should be made. At present, the two sides are still negotiating on this."

China has always adopted an open, transparent and responsible attitude on the issue of tracing the origin of the novel coronavirus, and taken the lead in carrying out scientific cooperation with WHO with the purpose of promoting international research on origin-tracing, stressed Hua.

In February and July 2020, Beijing invited WHO experts to carry out cooperation on origin-tracing in China and formulated its part of a global scientific cooperation plan on origin-tracing.

The Chinese side reached an agreement on the members of the international expert group last October, and since then experts from both sides have maintained frequent interactions.

Four video meetings were held on October 30, December 3, December 10 and December 18, respectively. Chinese experts shared the outcomes of the origin-tracing efforts in a scientific and candid manner, said Hua. Bilateral cooperation has made positive progress.