WHO hopes to submit a final report on the origins of the coronavirus next week, AP reports.

The head of a WHO expert group working with Chinese counterparts to finalize a long-awaited report on the origins of the COVID-19 acknowledged that its authors could face pressure, but insisted that the final product would receive a unanimous green light from all members of the group.

Expert on food safety and animal-to-human disease, Peter Ben Embarek, said the team hopes the report - currently some 280 pages long with timelines, dates, and appendices - will be ready for release next week.

The report is a first-step study that is expected to be followed by deeper analysis within the guidelines set by Chinese officials and the WHO team.

Ben Embarek, who led a 10-person international team of experts who visited China in January and February, acknowledged that political pressure over the virus pandemic has increased. The text refinement focused on scientific issues, while some of the translation issues from Chinese to English took a long time, he said. According to him, the report is being written by all experts and is part of a long and difficult process.

The Chinese newspaper Global Times published an interview with Liang Wannian, head of a group of Chinese experts, who pointed to the political pressure that amounts to tremendous disrespect for the work of our scientists.

He noted that some politicians and international media insisted on politicizing the scientific question of finding the source of COVID-19, regardless of scientific facts, for their own personal gain, arbitrarily misinterpreting the scientific findings and reports of our joint teams. He noted that both sides cooperated openly and fully throughout the month-long investigation and that the results of this joint research in China are the consensus of Chinese and foreign experts.

The team did not detect COVID-19 cases until December 8, 2019, he said.

Ben Embarek cited the need to explore the possible role of local trade in wild animal products from farms in and around southern China in 2019 and beyond in the pandemic in 2019 and beyond, which could be one of the ways the virus has entered a large city linked to global supply chains.