Chinese market linked to start of virus investigated

AWORLD Health Organisation (WHO) team looking into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic has visited the seafood market in the Chinese city of Wuhan that was linked to many early infections.

The team members visited Huanan Seafood Market for about an hour yesterday afternoon, and one of the team flashed a thumbs-up sign when reporters asked how the trip was going.

The market was the site of a December 2019 outbreak of the virus.

Scientists initially suspected the virus came from wild animals sold in the market.

The market has since been largely ruled out, but it could provide hints to how the virus spread so widely.

“Very important site visits today – a wholesale market first and Huanan Seafood Market just now,” Peter Daszak, a zoologist with the US group EcoHealth Alliance and a member of the WHO team, said in a tweet.

“Very informative and critical for our joint teams to understand the epidemiology of COVID as it started to spread at the end of 2019.”

Earlier in the day, the team members were also seen walking through sections of the Baishazhou market – one of the largest wet markets in Wuhan – surrounded by a large entourage of Chinese officials and representatives.

The market was the food distribution centre for Wuhan during the city’s 76-day lockdown last year.

The members, with expertise in veterinary medicine, virology, food safety and epidemiology, have so far 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 visited a museum exhibition dedicated to the early history of Covid-19.

The mission has become politically charged, as China seeks to avoid blame for alleged missteps in its early response to the outbreak.

A single visit by scientists is unlikely to confirm the virus’s origins.

Pinning down an outbreak’s animal reservoir is typically an exhaustive endeavour that takes years of research, including taking animal samples, genetic analysis and epidemiological studies. One possibility is that a wildlife poacher might have passed the virus to traders who carried it to Wuhan.

The Chinese government has promoted theories, with little evidence, that the outbreak might have started with imports of frozen seafood tainted with the virus, a notion roundly rejected by international scientists and agencies.

Meanwhile, China recorded more than 2,000 new domestic cases of Covid-19 in January, the highest monthly total since the tail-end of the initial outbreak in Wuhan in March last year.

The National Health Commission said yesterday that 2,016 cases had been reported between January 1 and 30. This did not include a further 435 infected people who had arrived from abroad.