Experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) who are investigating the origin of the coronavirus in China went to the Huanan market in Wuhan on Sunday, the first known focus of the epidemic, according to AFP journalists on the spot. .
This visit is ultra-sensitive politically for Beijing, accused of having delayed reacting to the first cases of Covid reported at the end of 2019 in the immense metropolis of central China.
Released from 14 days of quarantine on Thursday, the team members began their field investigation on Friday.
The Huanan market, where live wild animals were sold, has been closed since January 2020, and guards only allowed vehicles from the WHO investigative group.
Earlier in the morning, WHO experts also visited the gigantic Baishazhou wholesale market.
They were also taken to a huge Communist Party glory exhibition that honors Chinese rescuers.
Read also: Covid-19: the WHO's trompe-l'oeil investigation in Wuhan
"
Very important sites
"
Peter Daszak, one of the members of the fact-finding mission, tweeted that it had made "
visits to very important sites, a wholesale market first and now the seafood market in Huanan
".
"
Very informative and crucial to allow our joint teams to understand the epidemiology of the Covid, how it started to spread at the end of 2019,
" added the president of EcoHealth Alliance, an association based in the United States and specializing in disease prevention.
Huanan seafood market during the visit of WHO investigators, January 31, 2021. HECTOR RETAMAL / AFP
Chinese officials initially identified wild animals sold at the Wuhan market as the likely source of the outbreak, to the point of acting in response to the exotic animal trade.
But since then, official media have judged that the virus was probably born elsewhere, arguing that the disease could have been imported to Wuhan.
A few days ago, the nationalist daily Global Times published an article relativizing the importance of the Huanan market in the origin of the pandemic, saying that "
investigations
" suggested that it was not the source of the epidemic.
At present, no scientific certainty has ruled on the question of the origin of the virus.
Read also: The United States again accuses China of covering up the real origin of Covid-19
The communist power is almost silent on the subject and Beijing minimizes the scope of the mission of foreign specialists: "
This is not an investigation,
" said Friday a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Zhao Lijian, refusing let his country be singled out.
