WHO teams visits Wuhan food stuff market place in lookup of virus clues
A Environment Health and fitness Organization staff seeking into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic has frequented the food market place in the Chinese town of Wuhan that was linked to numerous early bacterial infections
The team users frequented the Huanan Seafood Current market for about an hour in the afternoon, and one of them flashed a thumbs up indicator when reporters asked how the trip was likely.
The market was the web site of a December 2019 outbreak of the virus. Experts at first suspected the virus came from wild animals bought in the current market. The market has due to the fact been mostly ruled out but it could give hints to how the virus unfold so widely.
“Very important site visits these days — a wholesale sector very first & Huanan Seafood Market place just now,” Peter Daszak, a zoologist with the U.S. group EcoHealth Alliance and a member of the WHO staff, explained in a tweet. “Very enlightening & vital for our joint teams to comprehend the epidemiology of COVID as it started out to distribute at the conclude of 2019.”
Earlier in the day, the staff customers were being also noticed strolling via sections of the Baishazhou current market — one of the greatest wet markets in Wuhan — surrounded by a substantial entourage of Chinese officials and reps. The sector was the food items distribution middle for Wuhan all through the city’s 76-working day lockdown final yr.
The users, with experience in veterinary medication, virology, foodstuff basic safety and epidemiology, have so considerably frequented two hospitals at the heart of the early outbreak — Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital and the Hubei Integrated Chinese and Western Drugs Healthcare facility.
On Saturday, they also frequented a museum exhibition devoted to the early record of COVID-19.
The mission has become politically billed, as China seeks to steer clear of blame for alleged missteps in its early response to the outbreak.
A single stop by by scientists is unlikely to ensure the virus’s origins. Pinning down an outbreak’s animal reservoir is usually an exhaustive endeavor that can take a long time of investigation like having animal samples, genetic investigation and epidemiological experiments.
One particular possibility is that a wildlife poacher could have handed the virus to traders who carried it to Wuhan. The Chinese federal government has promoted theories, with very little proof, that the outbreak may have started out with imports of frozen seafood tainted with the virus, a notion roundly rejected by intercontinental researchers and companies.
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Soo described from Hong Kong.
