A World Health Organization team investigating the roots of the coronavirus visited the Chinese food market previously associated with many early infections.
Health workers spent about an hour at Wuhan’s Huanan Seafood Market on Sunday.
Scientists once suspected that animals sold on the market were linked to the December 2019 outbreak there. That theory has since been largely ruled out, but WHO workers say the site could provide hints as to how the deadly virus spread so quickly.
“Very important site visits today – a first for the wholesale market and only now for the Huanan Seafood Market,” Peter Daszak, a zoologist with the American group EcoHealth Alliance and member of the WHO team, tweeted. “Very informative and crucial for our joint teams to understand the epidemiology of COVID as it began to spread in late 2019.”
Before visiting the Huanan Seafood Market, the team members were joined by a large group of Chinese officials for a walk through the Baishazhou Market – one of the industrial city’s largest food retail locations, which was a distribution center during the 76-day lockdown.
The visit was politically charged, as Communist Party leaders seek to avoid the blame for missteps in the country’s early response to the outbreak. China had previously blocked the scientists’ planned access to the market. It rescinded the decision earlier this month after WHO leaders accused the country of obstructing the investigation.
The international team of experts in veterinary medicine, virology, food safety and epidemiology also visited two hospitals in the center of the early outbreak and a museum exhibition on the early history of COVID-19.
A member of the WHO team gave a thumbs-up to a reporter who inquired about the success of the tours.
However, a single visit by the team is unlikely to yield answers. Years of research with animal samples, genetic analysis and epidemiological studies are usually required to determine the origin of an outbreak.
Chinese officials have advanced an unconfirmed theory that the outbreak started with imported frozen seafood, but a more feasible possibility is that a wildlife poacher passed the virus on to traders who brought it to Wuhan.
Wuhan was responsible for most of China’s 4,635 COVID-19 deaths, but there are reports that there have been no outbreaks since the lockdown lifted in April last year.
A November study by the National Cancer Institute said the virus appears to be circulating in Milan in September 2019 – three months before the outbreak was reported in Wuhan.
With pole wires