WUHAN, China (AP) – Researchers from the World Health Organization visited a research center in the Chinese city of Wuhan on Wednesday that has been the subject of speculation about the origins of the coronavirus.
The WHO’s visit to the Wuhan Institute of Virology is one of the highlights of its mission to collect data and look for clues as to where the virus originated and how it spread.
Reporters followed the team to the high-security facility, but, as on previous visits, there was no direct access to team members who have so far given few details of their discussions and visits. Uniformed and plainclothes security guards were guarded in the thick of the morning fog, but there was no indication that members of the protective clothing team had dressed on Tuesday during a visit to a disease research center. animals.
One of China’s leading virus research labs, the institute built a genetic information archive on bat coronavirus after the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome in 2003. This has led to unproven allegations that they could have a link to the original COVID-19 explosion in Wuhan in late 2019.
China has strongly denied this possibility and has promoted theories that the virus could have originated elsewhere or even been introduced into the country from abroad with imports of frozen seafood contaminated by the virus, a notion rejected. by scientists and international agencies.
The deputy director of the institute is Shi Zhengli, a virologist who worked with Peter Daszak, a zoologist on the WHO team’s mission, to trace the origins of SARS that originated in China and caused the 2003 outbreak. .He has published extensively in academic journalists and has worked to disprove the theories espoused by the former Trump administration and other U.S. officials that the virus is a firearm or a “laboratory leak” from the institute.
After two weeks of quarantine, the WHO team that includes experts from ten countries has visited hospitals, research institutes and a traditional wet market related to many of the first cases. His visit followed months of negotiations, as China wants to maintain tight control over information about the outbreak and research into its origins, possibly to avoid blaming the alleged mistakes in its first response.
Confirmation of the origins of the virus is likely to take years. Determining the deposition of animals from an outbreak typically requires thorough research, including animal sampling, genetic analysis, and epidemiological studies. One possibility is that a savage thief passed the virus to traders who took it to Wuhan.
The first COVID-19 groups were detected in Wuhan in late 2019, prompting the government to put the city of 11 million in a strict 76-day closure. Since then, China has reported more than 89,000 cases and 4,600 deaths, with new cases largely concentrated in its northeastern and local refrigeration closures and travel restrictions imposed to contain outbreaks.
New cases of local transmission continue to fall, with only 15 reported on Wednesday, as the Chinese government heeded calls not to travel for the Lunar New Year holidays later this month.