Virus experts visit market in Wuhan
WUHAN: A team of World Health Organization (WHO) experts investigating the origins of Covid-19 on Sunday went to a market in Wuhan where one of the first reported clusters of infections emerged over a year ago, with one member tweeting the visit was “critical” to understanding the virus.
Members of the group arrived at Huanan seafood market which has been sealed since January last year - driving into its barricaded premises as guards quickly blocked others from entering, according to AFP journalists at the scene.
The mission, delayed by China and weighed down by political baggage, has a remit to explore how the virus jumped from animal to human.
But with the fieldwork element of the trip in its early stages, WHO officials have already played down expectations of finding the source of a virus which has killed over two million people and devastated the global economy.
On Sunday, the WHO team visited Huanan market and another wholesale one, as part of a long-planned trip closely monitored by the Chinese authorities.
Team member Peter Daszak described the tours on Twitter as “very important site visits”, adding that the team had “met with key staff at both markets and asked questions to help better understand the factors involved in the emergence of Covid”.
Despite the fact that over a year has elapsed since the outbreak there, Daszak said speaking to staff and seeing the layout of the Huanan market was “very informative”.
The visits were “critical for our joint teams to understand the epidemiology of Covid as it started to spread at the end of 2019”, he said in another tweet.