The World Health Organization (WHO) has rejected the theory that imported frozen food caused the first outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 in Wuhan in December 2019, as suggested by the Chinese authorities.
“We are not analyzing the idea of importing the virus in these frozen products to China,” said Peter Ben Embarek, WHO specialist in food safety and animal diseases and president, at a press conference from Geneva, Switzerland, on Thursday. of the research team in Wuhan.
According to the expert, the investigation team is now focusing its investigation that “the local trade in frozen wild farm animals, which are mainly produced in southern China,” could introduce the virus to the Wuhan market. “That’s a very different discussion from international trade,” he said.
At a news conference from Wuhan last week, Liang Wannian, head of the COVID-19 expert panel at China’s Ministry of Health, suggested the possibility that frozen products act as a surface for the virus to transmit to the human population or as routes of transmission. related to food.
Wannian recalled that about 11,000 blood samples from animals from 31 Chinese provinces have been analyzed in recent months and that in all cases the result of the COVID-19 test was negative. The Chinese expert made this argument to suggest that the virus could be imported to China from other parts of the world, a fact that did not completely rule out Embarek in its appearance.
“We continue to hypothesize that it could have been introduced by an infected person and then spread to other people in the market. But it could also be through the introduction of a product. One of the most interesting products was wild animals, frozen food plants. Some of these species are known to be susceptible to this type of virus, “said Embarek.
WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also pointed to a meeting last week after the Wuhan press conference that “all hypotheses remain open” about the origins of SARS-CoV-2 after the mission in China. “Some questions have arisen as to whether some hypotheses have been ruled out. After speaking to some members of the team, I would like to confirm that all hypotheses remain open and require further analysis and study,” he explained.