US scientists collaborate with china to identify COVID-19's origin.

Scientists are working in conjunction with Chinese researchers to unravel the origin of
the mysterious coronavirus amid claim that Beijing is hiding information about the virus.

The research is coming few days after the US president, Donald Trump criticized china is hiding information from outsider to stem the disease.

Ian Lipkin, director of the Center for Infection and Immunity at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, said he was working with a team of Chinese researchers to determine whether coronavirus emerged in other parts of China before it was first discovered in Wuhan in December. "The effort relies on help from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention",he said 

“The China CDC is interested in learning as much as it can about the origins [of] these types of viruses,” said Prof Lipkin, a virologist who worked on the 2003 Sars and 2012 Mers coronavirus outbreaks and advised on the 2011 pandemic film "contagion". He told the Financial Times. “We share whatever we learn with the entire scientific community.”

Prof Lipkin, who has developed longstanding relationships with Chinese officials since he helped develop rapid testing for Sars in 2003, visited China earlier this year to discuss responses to Covid-19. He met premier Li Keqiang, and also received an award, his second from China.
Lu Jiahai, a professor at the Public Health School of Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou and Prof Lipkin’s research partner in China, told the FT that China CDC had helped him liaise with hospitals and local CDCs across the country. This was to access nationwide blood bank samples taken from pneumonia patients so the group could study whether coronavirus had been present in the population before it was detected in Wuhan.