Members of a World Health Organization team investigating the origins of the coronavirus pandemic visited another hospital in Wuhan that treated first patients with COVID-19 on its second full day of work on Saturday.
Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital was one of the first to deal with patients in the early 2020s who were suffering from a hitherto unknown virus and is a key part of the epidemiological history of the disease.
“I have just returned from a visit to the Jinyintan hospital, which specializes in infectious diseases and is assigned to treat the first cases in Wuhan,” said Dutch virologist Marion Koopmans in a post on Twitter. “Stories very similar to those I heard from ICU doctors.”
Zoologist Peter Daszak of the American group EcoHealth Alliance, which is part of the team, said in a tweet that the visit was an “important opportunity to speak directly” with doctors who were fighting the virus at the critical moment.
The team’s first face-to-face meetings with Chinese scientists took place on Friday, before experts specializing in animal health, virology, food safety and epidemiology visited another initial site of the outbreak, Hubei’s Integrated Chinese and Western Medical Hospital.
The Geneva-based WHO said on Thursday evening on Twitter that its team plans to visit hospitals, markets like the Huanan Seafood Market that has been linked to many of the first cases, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and laboratories at facilities like the Wuhan Center for Disease Control.
“All the hypotheses are on the table, as the team follows science in its work to understand the origins of the COVID19 virus”, tweeted the WHO. He said the team had previously asked for “detailed underlying data” and planned to speak with the first respondents and some of the first patients.
The mission has become politically charged as China seeks to avoid blame for alleged errors in its initial response to the outbreak.
A single visit from scientists is unlikely to confirm the origins of the virus. Determining the animal reservoir of an outbreak is typically an exhaustive effort that takes years of research, including collecting animal samples, genetic analyzes and epidemiological studies.
One possibility is that a wildlife hunter passed the virus on to traders who took it to Wuhan. The Chinese government has promoted theories, with little evidence, that the outbreak could have started with the importation of frozen seafood contaminated with the virus, an idea totally rejected by scientists and international agencies.
A possible focus for researchers is the Wuhan Institute of Virology. One of China’s leading virus research laboratories, he built an archive of genetic information on coronaviruses in bats after the SARS outbreak in 2003, or severe acute respiratory syndrome.