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HealthAsia

Coronavirus: WHO, China experts meet 'mask-to-mask'

January 29, 2021

The international WHO experts are on a mission to find out about the origins of the coronavirus. While in quarantine in Wuhan, they've had to make do with video calls to their Chinese counterparts.

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China WHO Delegation in Wuhan
Chinese scientists and a team of WHO experts met for the first time face-to-face, following two weeks of quarantineImage: Ng Han Guan/AP Photo/picture alliance

World Health Organization (WHO) experts met their Chinese counterparts face-to-face on Friday in the central city of Wuhan.

The 10-strong international team are in China on a fact-finding mission, hoping to learn more about the origins of the coronavirus.

Provincial capital Wuhan, in Hubei, was the initial epicenter of the disease. But exactly which species the virus came from and how it was transmitted to humans remains unknown.

The experts arrived on January 14, but have spent the past two weeks in a required quarantine.During this time they have been communicating with Chinese officials by video calls to lay the groundwork for field visits.

No technical glitches

"First face to face meeting with our colleagues. Correction: face mask to face mask given the medical restrictions. Discussing our visiting program," Marion Koopmans, a virologist at Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands, tweeted on Friday.

"China teamleader prof Wannian joking about some technical glitches. Nice to see our colleagues after lengthy zoom meetings," she said.

What is on the itinerary?

The team is visiting hospitals, laboratories and markets. Field visits will include the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Huanan seafood market and the Wuhan CDC laboratory, the WHO said on Twitter.

One of the hospitals WHO officials visited Friday was where China says the first COVID-19 patients were treated more than a year ago.

The team of experts has already requested "detailed underlying data" ahead of speaking to early responders and some of the early coronavirus patients.

But it provided no further details about the team's agenda.

Theories about COVID-19's origins

Much of the speculation regarding COVID-19's starting point has centered around the likelihood it passed from bats to humans through another species sold at a wet market in Wuhan.

Another much less-likely theory is that the virus may have come from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. One of China's top virus research labs, it built an archive of genetic information about bat coronaviruses after the 2003 outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome.

The laboratory is on the WHO's visit-list along with the wet market.

"All hypotheses are on the table," the WHO added in a tweet on Thursday.

kmm, jsi/rt (Reuters, AP)