WUHAN, China (AP) – A World Health Organization team investigating the origins of the coronavirus pandemic on Monday visited two disease control centers that had an early hand in managing the outbreak in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.
WHO investigators arrived in Wuhan, the provincial capital, last month to look for clues and visited hospitals and a seafood market where early cases were detected.
The team visited both the Hubei Provincial Center for Disease Control and its office in Wuhan on Monday amid tight Chinese controls on access to virus information.
China has tried to avoid blame for alleged mistakes in its early response to the outbreak, while promoting alternative theories that the virus originated elsewhere and could even be brought to Wuhan from abroad.
After visiting the provincial center, team member Peter Daszak told reporters it was a “very good, very important meeting.” No other details were given.
The evidence the team is gathering will add to what has been expected to be a search for answers for years. Identifying the animal sources of an outbreak requires massive amounts of research, including animal sampling, genetic analysis and epidemiological studies.
In Geneva, WHO officials pushed back on Monday against suggestions that China receives less about how the pandemic began.
At a press briefing, WHO COVID-19 technical director Maria Van Kerkhove said the team plans to visit the Wuhan Institute of Virology, among other sites.
“The more details you have on the ground, the more questions you have,” she said. “The team will follow the information. They will pursue 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 had to approve the mission’s final agenda.
Dr Michael Ryan, WHO’s head of emergencies, said the WHO continued to request 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 answers, if you think you have some answers, please let us know “, he said. He dismissed critics who said any report from the mission was incomplete and said the team “deserves the support of the international community”.
China has largely limited domestic transmission through strict testing and tracking of contacts. Wearing a mask in public is observed almost universally and blockages are usually imposed on communities and even entire cities where cases are detected. The latest outbreaks occurred mainly in the cold northeast, 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 COVID-19 deaths in China in a few months.
Schools have gone online, and travel has been drastically reduced during this month’s New Year’s holiday, with the government providing incentives for people to stay during the most important time for family reunions across the nation.