WUHAN, China (AP) – A World Health Organization team investigating the origins of the coronavirus pandemic visited the food market in the Chinese city of Wuhan on Sunday, which has been linked to many early infections.
The team members visited Huanan Seafood Market for about an hour in the afternoon, and one of them showed a thumbs-up sign when reporters asked how the trip was going.
The market was the site of an outbreak of the virus in December 2019. Scientists initially suspected that the virus came from wild animals sold in the market. The market has been largely out of the question since then, but it could provide hints as to how the virus spread so widely.
“Very important site visits today – a first in the wholesale market and just now the Huanan Seafood Market,” said Peter Daszak, a zoologist with the American group EcoHealth Alliance and a member of the WHO team, in a tweet. “Very informative and crucial for our joint teams to understand the epidemiology of COVID as it began to spread in late 2019.”
Earlier in the day, the team members also walked parts of the Baishazhou Market – one of the largest wet markets 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 lockdown last year.
The members, with expertise in veterinary medicine, virology, food safety and epidemiology, have visited two hospitals in the center of the early outbreak so far: Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital and Hubei Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine Hospital.
On Saturday they also visited a museum exhibition dedicated to the early history of COVID-19.
The mission is politically charged, as China’s early response to the outbreak seeks to avoid blame for alleged wrongdoing.
A single visit from scientists is unlikely to confirm the origin of the virus. Securing the animal reservoir from an outbreak is usually an exhausting endeavor that requires years of research, including animal sampling, genetic analysis and epidemiological studies.
One possibility is that a wild animal poacher passed on the virus to traders who brought 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, an idea that has been flatly rejected by international scientists and agencies.
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Soo reported from Hong Kong.