[ad_1]
WUHAN, China – A global team of researchers arrived in the Chinese city where the coronavirus pandemic was first detected on Thursday to conduct a politically sensitive investigation into its origins amid uncertainty over whether Beijing could try to avoid embarrassing discoveries.
The 10-member team sent to Wuhan by the World Health Organization was approved by the government of President Xi Jinping after months of diplomatic disputes that sparked an unusual public complaint from the WHO chief.
Scientists suspect that the virus that has killed 1.9 million people since late 2019 leapt to humans from bats or other animals, likely in southwest China. The ruling Communist Party, affected by complaints that it allowed the disease to spread, says the virus came from abroad, possibly in imported shellfish, but scientists reject it.
CGTN, the English channel of the state network CCTV, reported the arrival of the WHO team. Members include virus and other experts from the United States, Australia, Germany, Japan, Britain, Russia, the Netherlands, Qatar, and Vietnam.
A government spokesman said this week that they will “exchange views” with Chinese scientists, but gave no indication whether they would be allowed to gather evidence.
They will undergo a two-week quarantine, as well as a throat swab test and an antibody test for Covid-19, according to a post on CGTN’s official Weibo account. They must start working with Chinese experts via video conference while they are in quarantine.
China rejected demands for an international investigation after the Trump administration blamed Beijing for the spread of the virus, which plunged the world economy into its deepest depression since the 1930s.
After Australia called for an independent investigation in April, Beijing retaliated by blocking imports of Australian meat, wine and other products.
One possibility is that a wildlife poacher passed the virus to the traders who brought it to Wuhan, one of the WHO team members, zoologist Peter Daszak of the US group EcoHealth Alliance, told the Associated Press in November.
A single visit by scientists is unlikely to confirm the origin of the virus; Determining the animal reservoir for an outbreak is often a comprehensive endeavor that requires years of research, including animal sampling, genetic testing, and epidemiological studies.
“The government should be very transparent and collaborative,” said Shin-Ru Shih, director of the Emerging Viral Infections Research Center at Chang Gung University in Taiwan.
The Chinese government has tried to create confusion about the origin of the virus. He has promoted theories, with little evidence, that the outbreak could have started with imports of contaminated seafood, a notion rejected by scientists and international agencies.
“The WHO will have to carry out similar investigations elsewhere,” an official with the National Health Commission, Mi Feng, said on Wednesday.
Some members of the WHO team were heading to China a week ago, but had to return after Beijing announced that they had not received valid visas.
That may have been a “bureaucratic error,” but the incident “raises the question of whether the Chinese authorities were trying to interfere,” said Adam Kamradt-Scott, a health expert at the University of Sydney.
One possible focus for researchers is the Wuhan Institute of Virology in the city where the outbreak began. One of China’s leading virus research laboratories created an archive of genetic information on bat coronaviruses after the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome.
According to the WHO’s published agenda for its origins research, there are no plans to assess whether there could have been an accidental release of the coronavirus from the Wuhan lab, as some US politicians, including President Donald Trump, have claimed.
A “scientific audit” of the Institute’s records and security measures would be a “routine activity,” said Mark Woolhouse, an epidemiologist at the University of Edinburgh. He said that depends on how willing the Chinese authorities are to share information.
“There’s a huge element of trust here,” Woolhouse said.
An AP investigation found that the government imposed controls on the investigation into the outbreak and prohibits scientists from speaking to journalists.
The exact origin of the coronavirus may never be traced because viruses change rapidly, Woolhouse said.
Although it can be challenging to find precisely the same Covid-19 virus in animals as in humans, discovering closely related viruses could help explain how the disease first jumped out of animals and clarify what preventive measures are necessary to avoid future epidemics.
Instead, scientists should focus on getting a “big picture” of the virus to help respond to future outbreaks, Woolhouse said.
“Now is not the time to blame anyone,” Shih said. “We shouldn’t say it’s your fault.” AP
