The team arrived in Wuhan, Hubei’s provincial capital, last month to look for clues and have visited treatment centers and hospitals where many of the earliest patients were treated and a seafood market where cases of infection with the then-unknown virus emerged in December 2019.
The visit to the Hubei Provincial Center for Disease Control comes amid tight Chinese controls on access to information about the virus
China has sought to avoid blame for alleged missteps in its early response to the outbreak, while promoting alternative theories that the virus originated elsewhere and may have even been brought to Wuhan from outside the country.
The evidence the team gathers will add to what is expected to be a years-long quest for answers. Pinning down an outbreak’s animal reservoir requires massive amounts of research including taking animal samples, genetic analysis and epidemiological studies.
At least 2,226,448 people globally have died from COVID-19 and more than 102 million have been infected by the novel coronavirus that causes it, following an outbreak that started in Wuhan, China, in early December
(AP and Reuters)
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