A World Health Organization team investigating the roots of the coronavirus visited the Chinese food market that was previously linked to many early infections.
Health workers spent about an hour at the Huanan Seafood Market on Sunday in Wuhan.
Once scientists suspected that animals had been sold in the market they related to the outbreak there in December 2019 This theory has been largely ruled out, but WHO workers say the site could provide suggestions about how the deadly virus spread so quickly.
“Today there are very important site visits: first wholesale market and Huanan seafood market,” said Peter Daszak, a zoologist with the US group EcoHealth Alliance and a member of the WHO team. he tweeted. “Very informative and critical for our joint teams to understand the epidemiology of COVID as it began to spread in late 2019.”
Before visiting the Huanan Seafood Market, team members joined a large entourage of Chinese officials to stroll through the Baishazhou Market, one of the largest food outlets in the industrial city, which was a distribution center during the 76-day closure.
The visit was politically charged as Communist Party leaders try to avoid blaming the mistakes in the country’s first response to the outbreak. Earlier, China had blocked the planned entry of scientists into the market. He reversed the decision earlier this month after WHO leaders accused the country of obstructing the investigation.
The international team of experts in veterinary medicine, virology, food safety and epidemiology also toured two hospitals in the center of the early outbreak and a museum showing the initial history of COVID-19.
A member of the WHO team threw a thumbs-up sign at a journalist who asked about the success of the tours.
However, a single team visit is unlikely to generate a response. It usually takes years of research on animal samples, genetic analysis, and epidemiological studies to determine the origins of an outbreak.
Chinese officials have raised an unconfirmed theory that the outbreak started from imported frozen seafood, but a more viable possibility is that a wildlife poacher passed the virus to traders who brought it to Wuhan.
Wuhan accounted for most of the 4,635 deaths from COVID-19 in China, but it was reported to be free of outbreaks since the closure was withdrawn last April.
A November study by the National Cancer Institute said the virus appeared to be circulating in Milan in September 2019, three months before the outbreak was reported in Wuhan.
With mail cables