A team led by the World Health Organization looking for clues to the origins of COVID-19 warned that its mission in the Chinese city of Wuhan is unlikely to provide all the answers.
“We are not going to come to a complete understanding of the origins of this virus, but it will be a good first step,” said Peter Ben Embarek, who is WHO’s leading expert on zoonotic diseases that originate in animals, Reporting by Agence Frace Press.
Hung Nguyen-Viet, co-leader of the Human and Animal Health Program at the International Livestock Research Institute in Nairobi, Kenya, also tried to moderate expectations of the long-awaited visit to the original epicenter of the pandemic.
“I keep saying that we need to be realistic, a short mission like this will not have all the answers, but it helps to advance the understanding of #virusorigin #wuhan,” he wrote in a tweet.
But Peter Daszak, a zoologist and animal disease specialist, insisted that the team had made progress since arriving in China.
“I see an image emerging from some of the scenarios looking more plausible than before,” said Daszak.
One possibility that is being examined closely by the group is whether the virus could have spread elsewhere long before it was first identified in Wuhan.
“This is something that our group is examining intensively to see what level of transmission in the community could have happened before,” said Daszak.
“The real work we are doing here is to trace from the first cases to an animal reservoir, and this is a much more complicated path and it may have happened over several months or even years.”
The team visited hospitals, seafood markets and research facilities during the trip – including a visit on Wednesday to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the laboratory at the center of unfounded speculation that was the source of the pandemic.
“An extremely important meeting today with the WIV team, including Dr. Shi Zhengli. Frank, open discussion. Key questions asked and answered ”, tweeted Daszak.
Daszak later told Reuters that there was no evidence to suggest that COVID-19 left a laboratory.
However, researchers have only so far visited visits organized by their Chinese hosts.
“Of course, it is impossible to know what is not being said to you, but what I am seeing in China, and what this group is seeing in China, is what we ask for, we are authorized to do,” said Daszak.
With Post Wires