GENEVA: The World Health Organization said Monday it was sending a team to China next week in connection with the search for the origin of the virus that sparked the global COVID-19 pandemic.

"Knowing the source of the virus is very, very important," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual briefing, adding: "we will be sending a team next week to China to prepare for that and we hope that that will lead into understanding how the virus started."