WUHAN, China (AP) – A World Health Organization team that analyzed the origins of the coronavirus pandemic on Sunday visited the food market in the Chinese city of Wuhan, linked to many early infections.
Team members visited the Huanan Seafood Market for about an hour in the afternoon, and one of them lit a thumb when reporters asked how the trip was going.
The market was the site of a December 2019 outbreak of the virus. Scientists initially suspected that the virus came from wild animals sold on the market. Since then, the market has been largely ruled out, but it could provide clues as to how the virus has spread so far.
“Very important site visits today – a wholesale market first and the Huanan Seafood Market right now,” said Peter Daszak, a zoologist with the US EcoHealth Alliance and a member of the WHO team, in a tweet. “Very informative and critical for our joint teams to understand the epidemiology of COVID, as it began to spread at the end of 2019.”
Earlier in the day, team members were also seen passing through sections of Baishazhou Market – one of the largest wetlands in Wuhan – surrounded by a large entourage of Chinese officials and representatives. The market was the food distribution center for Wuhan during the city’s 76-day closure last year.
Members, with expertise in veterinary medicine, virology, food safety and epidemiology, have so far visited two hospitals in the center of the early outbreak – Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital and Hubei Hospital for Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine.
On Saturday, they also visited a museum exhibition dedicated to the early history of COVID-19.
The mission has become politically charged as China tries to avoid blame for the alleged mistakes in its early response to the outbreak.
A single visit by scientists is unlikely to confirm the origins of the virus. Fixing the animal reservoir of an outbreak is usually a thorough effort that requires years of research, including animal sampling, genetic analysis and epidemiological studies.
One possibility is that a wild poacher transmitted the virus to traders who transported it to Wuhan. The Chinese government has promoted theories with little evidence that the outbreak could have started with imports of frozen seafood contaminated with the virus, a notion flatly rejected by scientists and international agencies.
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Soo reported from Hong Kong.