WHO team visits Wuhan hospital
UN health agency’s investigators speak with scientists, visit hospital where first cases were treated
A World Health Organization (WHO) team on Friday began probing the origins of the coronavirus in Wuhan by meeting Chinese scientists and visiting a hospital that treated the first patients suspected to have been infected back in December 2019. “Extremely important 1st site visit. We are in the hospital that treated some of the first known cases of Covid-19, meeting with the actual clinicians & staff who did this work, having open discussion about the details of their work,” Peter Daszak, a member of the WHO-led team, tweeted. The UN agency has said the team will visit the Huanan seafood market linked to the first cases in the early days of the outbreak in Wuhan, and also the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said that while WHO and Chinese experts were working together to trace the origin of the virus, the mission was not a probe.
BEIJING/BRUSSELS: A team of experts led by the World Health Organization (WHO) began a probe into the origins of the coronavirus in the city of Wuhan by meeting Chinese scientists and visiting a hospital that treated the first patients suspected to have been infected with Covid-19 back in December 2019.
“Extremely important 1st site visit. We are in the hospital that treated some of the first known cases of Covid-19, meeting with the actual clinicians & staff who did this work, having open discussion about the details of their work,” Peter Daszak, a member of the WHO-led team, tweeted on Friday.
The itinerary of the experts has not been announced, though the UN agency has said the team plans to visit the Huanan seafood market linked to the first cases in the early days of the outbreak in Wuhan, and also the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Team leader Peter Ben Embarek told the state media, “(We hope to) understand the setting,
see the places where cases were linked, reconstruct the initial event there, search for records of animals, products traded there. And possibly talking to some of the merchants who were there (the Huanan seafood market) at that time.”
“My understanding is that there will be no restrictions or limitations in working with our Chinese colleagues or in visiting places the joint team deems of interest,” Ben Embarek told Global Times.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, Zhao Lijian, said that the mission was not a probe; rather it was a part of a “global research”.