Coronavirus
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Members of a World Health Organization team investigating the origins of the coronavirus pandemic visited another Wuhan hospital that had treated early COVID-19 patients on their second full day of work on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital was one of the city\u2019s first to deal with patients in early 2020 suffering from a then-unknown virus and is a key part of the epidemiological history of the disease.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust back from visit at Jinyintan hospital, that specialized in infectious diseases and was designated for treatment of the first cases in Wuhan,\u201d Dutch virologist Marion Koopmans said in a post on Twitter. \u201cStories quite similar to what I have heard from our ICU doctors.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zoologist Peter Daszak of the U.S. group EcoHealth Alliance, who is a member of the team, said in a tweet that the visit was an \u201cimportant opportunity to talk directly\u201d with medics who were fighting the virus at the critical time.<\/p>\n
The team\u2019s first face-to-face meetings with Chinese scientists took place on Friday, before the experts who specialize in animal health, virology, food safety and epidemiology visited another early site of the outbreak, the Hubei Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine Hospital.<\/p>\n
The Geneva-based WHO said late Thursday on Twitter that its team plans to visit hospitals, markets like the Huanan Seafood Market that was linked to many of the first cases, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and laboratories at facilities including the Wuhan Center for Disease Control.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll hypotheses are on the table as the team follows the science in their work to understand the origins of the COVID19 virus,\u201d WHO tweeted. It said the team had already requested \u201cdetailed underlying data\u201d and planned to speak with early responders and some of the first patients.<\/p>\n
The mission has become politically charged, as China seeks to avoid blame for alleged missteps in its early response to the outbreak.<\/p>\n
A single visit by scientists is unlikely to confirm the virus\u2019s origins. Pinning down an outbreak\u2019s animal reservoir is typically an exhaustive endeavor that takes years of research including taking animal samples, genetic analysis and epidemiological studies.<\/p>\n
One possibility is that a wildlife poacher might have passed the virus to traders who carried it to Wuhan. The Chinese government has promoted theories, with little evidence, that the outbreak might have started with imports of frozen seafood tainted with the virus, a notion roundly rejected by international scientists and agencies.<\/p>\n
A possible focus for investigators is the Wuhan Institute of Virology. One of China\u2019s top virus research labs, it built an archive of genetic information about bat coronaviruses after the 2003 outbreak of SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome.<\/p>\n