Covid WHO investigation team arrives at animal health facility in virus ground zero – World News

A team of investigators has explored an animal health facility at the Covid outbreak’s ground zero city of Wuhan as efforts to solve the origin of the virus continue.

In the search for clues about the birth of the pandemic that has left millions dead and ravaged the global economy the team has already visited hospitals and the notorious Huanan seafood market.

As their fact-finding mission continued the World Health Organisation-led team said the trip was a success so far.

One of the team members, Peter Daszak, president of the EcoHealth Alliance, said today the mission was going ‘really well, excellent.’

As the team left the animal health centre, Daszak said it had held ‘very informative meetings’, but did not elaborate on any specifics.

The centre in the province of Hubei, which fights epidemic diseases in animals, is hoped will provide information on how a coronavirus endemic in horseshoe bats in southwest China might have crossed into humans, possibly via an intermediary species.

Studies suggest the virus could have been transferred from mink or pangolins, but there has also been speculation that traders dealing in bat products could have carried the disease for months before it began to spread in Wuhan.

Peter Ben Embarek, the WHO’s top expert on “zoonotic” diseases that originate in animals, was among the team members clad in white suits of personal protective equipment spotted within the centre’s premises.

A worker, also wearing protective gear, sprayed disinfectant on the road outside after the team had entered.

Though many researchers say the disease is most likely to have originated in China’s disturbed ecosystems, some believe it could have leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which has researched bat viruses.

The WHO team is expected to visit the institute later this week.

On Monday, the WHO’s top emergency official, Mike Ryan, said the investigation might not find all the answers to the origins of the virus, calling the mission a ‘detective story’ that raises new questions.

He also criticised those who have said they would not accept the team’s findings.

He said: “It deserves the support of the international community and it deserves to be able to finish its work.”