WHO groups visits Wuhan food items market in look for of virus clues

WUHAN, China — A World Health Group staff wanting into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic on Sunday frequented the foods market in the Chinese town of Wuhan that was joined to many early infections.

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The group associates frequented the Huanan Seafood Market for about an hour in the afternoon, and a single of them flashed a thumbs up indication when reporters requested how the trip was heading.

The market place was the website of a December 2019 outbreak of the virus. Scientists to begin with suspected the virus arrived from wild animals marketed in the market. The marketplace has considering that been mostly ruled out but it could offer hints to how the virus unfold so widely.

“Very significant web page visits these days — a wholesale industry first & Huanan Seafood Current market just now,” Peter Daszak, a zoologist with the U.S. group EcoHealth Alliance and a member of the WHO team, explained in a tweet. “Very enlightening & crucial for our joint groups to fully grasp the epidemiology of COVID as it started to spread at the finish of 2019.”

Before in the day, the group users were also observed walking as a result of sections of the Baishazhou current market — just one of the biggest moist marketplaces in Wuhan — surrounded by a large entourage of Chinese officers and associates. The industry was the foodstuff distribution centre for Wuhan for the duration of the city’s 76-working day lockdown previous year.

The associates, with know-how in veterinary medicine, virology, food basic safety and epidemiology, have so considerably visited two hospitals at the centre of the early outbreak — Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital and the Hubei Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine Hospital.

On Saturday, they also frequented a museum exhibition dedicated to the early background of COVID-19.

The mission has become politically billed, as China seeks to stay away from blame for alleged missteps in its early reaction to the outbreak.

A single pay a visit to by researchers is not likely to ensure the virus’s origins. Pinning down an outbreak’s animal reservoir is normally an exhaustive endeavour that takes decades of investigate like having animal samples, genetic assessment and epidemiological scientific studies.

A single likelihood is that a wildlife poacher could possibly have handed the virus to traders who carried it to Wuhan. The Chinese authorities has promoted theories, with tiny proof, that the outbreak may well have commenced with imports of frozen seafood tainted with the virus, a notion roundly turned down by worldwide experts and agencies.

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Soo documented from Hong Kong.

Emily Wang Fujiyama And Zen Soo, The Associated Push