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WUHAN, China (Reuters) – A team of researchers led by the World Health Organization visited a virus research laboratory in the central Chinese city of Wuhan and met with a prominent virologist there in their search for clues about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Experts spent around 3-1 / 2 hours in the heavily guarded Wuhan Institute of Virology, which has been at the center of some conspiracy theories that claim a lab leak caused the city’s first coronavirus outbreak in late. of 2019.
“Extremely important meeting today with WIV staff, including Dr. Shi Zhengli. Frank, open discussion. Key questions asked and answered,” said team member Peter Daszak on Twitter.
Shi, a well-known virus hunter who has long focused on bat coronaviruses, earning her the nickname “Bat Woman,” was among the first last year to isolate the novel coronavirus that causes COVID- 19.
Most scientists, including Shi, reject the hypothesis of a laboratory leak. However, some experts speculate that a wild-caught virus could have figured in laboratory experiments to test the risks of human contagion and then have escaped through an infected staff member.
“Very interesting. A lot of questions,” Thea Fischer, a Danish team member, said from her car as she drove away from the lab after Wednesday’s visit, in response to a question about whether the team had found anything.
Some scientists have asked China to release details of all the coronavirus samples studied in the lab, to see which one looks the most like SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes respiratory disease.
The WHO, which has tried to manage expectations for the Wuhan mission, has said its members will be limited to visits organized by their Chinese hosts and will not have contact with community members, due to health restrictions.
While the new coronavirus that triggered the pandemic was first identified in Wuhan, Beijing has tried to challenge the notion that it originated in China, pointing to imported frozen food as a possible conduit.
The team will spend two weeks conducting field work after completing two weeks in hotel quarantine after arriving in Wuhan.
(Interactive graphical tracking of the global spread of coronavirus: https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps)
(Reporting by Thomas Peter and Martin Quin in Wuhan; written by David Stanway and Tony Munroe; edited by Clarence Fernandez and Pravin Char)
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