WUHAN, China (AP) – A World Health Organization team investigating the origins of the coronavirus pandemic on Monday visited two disease control centers that made an early gesture in managing the outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan.
WHO researchers arrived in Wuhan, the provincial capital, last month to look for clues and have visited hospitals and a seafood market where first cases were detected.
The team on Monday visited both the Hubei Provincial Disease Control Center and its Wuhan city office amid rigorous Chinese controls on access to information about the virus.
China has tried to avoid blaming the mistakes on its first response to the outbreak, promoting alternative theories that the virus originated elsewhere and could even have been brought to Wuhan from outside the country.
After the visit to the provincial center, team member Peter Daszak told reporters it had been a “very good, very important meeting.” No other details were given.
The evidence the team collects will add to what is expected to be a long-term search for answers. Determining animal sources of an outbreak requires a wealth of research, including animal sampling, genetic analysis, and epidemiological studies.
In Geneva, WHO officials backed down on Monday against suggestions that China is being unaware of how the pandemic began.
At a press conference, Maria Van Kerkhove, technical head of WHO’s COVID-19, said the team plans to visit the Wuhan Institute of Virology, among other places.
“The more details you have on the ground, the more questions you have,” he said. “The team will follow the information. They will follow science and continue to ask questions and analyze data. ”Van Kerkhove said it would be up to team members to decide what other field visits were needed, although China has to approve the mission’s final agenda.
Dr Michael Ryan, WHO’s head of emergencies, said the WHO was still asking for more data and said anyone with information on how the pandemic started should share it with the organization.
“We are in the field with experts from 10 countries looking to find the answers. If you have the answers, if you think you have any answers, let us know, “he said. He fired critics who said any mission report would be incomplete and said the team” deserves the support of the international community “.
China has largely slowed down national transmission through strict testing and contact tracking. The wearing of masks in public is observed almost universally and blockages are routinely imposed on communities and even entire cities where cases are detected. The latest outbreaks have occurred mainly in the Northeast refrigerator, with 33 new cases reported Monday nationwide in three provinces.
Despite this, China registered more than 2,000 new domestic cases of COVID-19 in January, the highest monthly total since the final phase of the initial outbreak in Wuhan last March. Two people died of the disease in January, the first reporting deaths from COVID-19 in China in several months.
Schools have gone online and travel has dropped dramatically during this month’s Lunar New Year holidays, with the government offering incentives for people to stay in the most important time for family reunions. vast nation.