WHO workforce visits second Wuhan hospital in COVID-19 investigation
30 January, 2021
Members of a World Health Organization workforce investigating the origins of the coronavirus pandemic visited another Wuhan hospital that had treated early COVID-19 patients on the second full day of focus on Saturday (Jan 30).
Jinyantan Hospital was one of the city’s primary to manage patients in early on 2020 experiencing a then-unknown virus and is an integral section of the epidemiological history of the disease.
Members of the Universe Health Organization staff including Ken Maeda, best suited, prepare to leave for another day of field go to in Wuhan in central China's Hubei province on Saturday, Jan 30, 2021. (Photo: AP/Ng Han Guan)
The team’s first face-to-face meetings with Chinese scientists took place on Friday, prior to the experts who focus on animal health, virology, food safety and epidemiology visited another early site of the outbreak, the Hubei Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine Hospital.
The Geneva-based WHO said late Thursday on Twitter that its team plans to go to hospitals, markets like the Huanan Seafood Industry that was linked to lots of the first cases, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and laboratories at facilities like the Wuhan Centre for Disease Control.
“All hypotheses are up for grabs as the staff follows the science in their work to understand the origins of the COVID19 virus,” WHO tweeted. It explained the staff had already requested “thorough underlying data” and prepared to speak with early responders and some of the primary patients.
The mission is becoming politically charged, as China seeks in order to avoid blame for alleged missteps in its early response to the outbreak.
A single check out by scientists is unlikely to confirm the virus’s origins. Pinning down an outbreak’s animal reservoir is normally an exhaustive endeavor that needs years of research incorporating spending animal samples, genetic analysis, and epidemiological analyses.
One possibility is a wildlife poacher may have passed the virus to traders who carried it to Wuhan. The Chinese authorities has got promoted theories, with little evidence, that the outbreak might have began with imports of frozen seafood tainted with the virus, a notion roundly rejected by international scientists and agencies.
A possible focus for investigators may be the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Among China’s top virus exploration labs, it built an archive of genetic information regarding bat coronaviruses after the 2003 outbreak of SARS, or serious acute respiratory syndrome.
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