Origins of COVID Under WHO Investigation in China

"My understanding is in fact there is no limit in accessing information we might need for the team."

"We will see. We are not in China yet."

Hung Nguyen, Vietnamese biologist

"What we would like to do with the international team and counterparts in China is to go back in the Wuhan environment, re-interview in-depth the initial cases, try to find other cases that were not detected at that time and try to see if we can push back the history of the first cases."

Peter Ben Embarek, WHO expert on animal diseases crossing species barrier

 

"We are looking for the answers here that may save us in future — not culprits and not people to blame."

"[The WHO is willing to go] anywhere and everywhere."

World Health Organization top emergency expert, Mike Ryan 

 

"At this stage what I think we need is a very open mind when trying to step back into the events that led eventually to this pandemic."

Marion Koopmans, virologist, Erasmus University Medical Center, Netherlands 

 

A worker in protective coverings directs members of the World Health Organization team on their arrival at the airport in Wuhan, in central China's Hubei province, on Thursday. (Ng Han Guan/The Associated Press)

An earlier attempt by WHO experts who set out to investigate the origins, extent and the host country's initial realization they were dealing with a novel coronavirus and the information they shared with the World Health Organization, resulted in a disappointing setback when members of the team were denied authorization by China to enter the country to fulfill the function they were dispatched by the world  health body to accomplish. At the time WHO chief Tetros Adhanom Ghebreyesus had voiced his disappointment and China responded that there had been a 'misunderstanding'.

 

That misunderstanding appears now to have been settled and the WHO team of expert investigators set off once again -- comprised of global scientists, experts in their field -- to investigate the novel coronavirus origins, planning to spend a month in the city of Wuhan. Just having arrived now, their first two weeks will be spent in quarantine. Before their arrival, Hung Nguyen, speaking via video-call from Singapore said the ten-member team did not expect to encounter any restrictions to their movements nor access to vital investigation sites.

 

They were preparing at that point to fly from Singapore to Wuhan. The end result of their investigation would presumably put to rest the skepticism voiced by the governments of the United States and Australia, to mention several of the more prominent voices demanding answers of Beijing. China has been accused of screening the extent of the initial outbreak leading to calls for a transparent investigation led by the WHO in the wake of criticisms of the terms by which experts in China conducted their research during the SARS-CoV-2 virus's initial entrance. 

The group arrived late in the morning from Singapore and was expected to head into two weeks of quarantine. (Thomas Peter/Reuters)

Dr.Hung explained in a media interview that the WHO team  had conducted regular virtual meetings for discussions with their Chinese virus-expert counterparts, taking place over the months before the team embarked on their trip to China. Once their period of quarantine had lapsed, the team planned to spend the following two weeks in interviews with people from research institutes, hospitals and from the seafood market in Wuhan where the pathogen was believed to have first emerged and began its spread, eventually appearing everywhere across the globe.

Dr.Hung's expertise is in the field of food safety risks arising from wet markets, whose existence is common throughout Asia and parts of Africa. He is himself based in Kenya, and he was chosen to take part in the investigative mission taking advantage of his training and experience. China has pushed back against international criticism as the crucible of yet another malignant virus that managed to leap the species gap between animals and humans; bats and pangolins considered to be vectors. Pangolins happen to be the most trafficked wild-animal species found in wet markets.

China has its own narrative of the novel coronavirus origins; that it was brought to China, not that it originated in China. Its state media has been expressing and promulgating a home-grown narrative of the virus being present in imported frozen food packaging from abroad. That it was present in 2019 in Europe. China being made a scapegoat for something it was not at all responsible for. And China has produced scientific papers featuring those claims. 

 

Before the WHO delegation of experts left for China they underwent COVID-19 tests in their countries of origin and then again in Singapore, all negative, which cleared them all for travel. On arrival in China additional, more complex tests were taken that showed two members of the delegation had bloodstream antibodies to COVID, and they were denied entry. 

 

Nucleic acid tests were negative but two of the members had coronavirus antibodies. "They are being retested for both IgM and IgG antibodies", explained the WHO. "Relevant epidemic prevention and control requirements and regulations will be strictly enforced", noted Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian at a briefing update Thursday responding to a question about the two team members.

People wearing face masks walk in a street market in Wuhan, Hubei province, the epicentre of China's novel coronavirus disease, in April 2020. The WHO team, which landed Thursday, will spend two weeks interviewing people from research institutes, hospitals and the Wuhan seafood market market where the new pathogen is believed to have emerged. (Aly Song/Reuters)