WHO team visits Wuhan virus lab

WUHAN • World Health Organisation (WHO) inspectors yesterday visited a laboratory in China's Wuhan city at the heart of a controversial theory that it could have been the source of the coronavirus.

The inspection of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which conducts research on the world's most dangerous viruses, will be one of the most-watched stops on the team's probe into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The sensitive mission, which China had delayed throughout the first year of the international health crisis, has a remit to explore how the virus jumped from animal to human. But questions remain over what the experts can hope to find after so much time has passed.

WHO team member Peter Daszak tweeted yesterday afternoon that it had been an "extremely important meeting today with staff" and a "frank, open discussion".

The WHO experts stayed in the institute for nearly four hours before driving away without stopping to talk to media waiting outside.

Most scientists think Covid-19 originated in bats and could have been transmitted to people via another mammal, but there are no definitive answers so far.

There was speculation early in the pandemic that the virus could have accidentally leaked from the biosafety lab in Wuhan, though there was no evidence to back up that theory.

China has faced criticism at home and abroad for playing down the initial outbreak and concealing information when the virus first emerged in Wuhan in December 2019.

Beijing is now determined to put the focus on its recovery from the outbreak.

On Sunday, the WHO team visited the market where one of the first reported clusters of infections emerged. Other stops include the hospital that treated some of the first Covid-19 cases.

Dr Daszak also tweeted that the team yesterday met Dr Shi Zhengli, one of China's leading experts on bat coronaviruses and deputy director of the Wuhan lab.

Dr Shi raised some eyebrows in an interview with Scientific American magazine last June, where she said she was initially anxious over whether the virus had leaked from the facility.

But subsequent checks revealed that none of the gene sequences matched the viruses held by the lab, she said.

She later said she would "bet her life that (the new coronavirus) had nothing to do with the lab", according to Chinese state media.

Meanwhile, China reported the lowest number of new Covid-19 cases for a single day in more than a month, official data showed yesterday. This is the latest indication that the current wave of infections is subsiding ahead of the Chinese New Year holiday break.

A total of 25 cases were reported on the mainland on Tuesday, the National Health Commission said, down from 30 cases a day earlier and the lowest since 24 cases were reported on Jan 2.

Fifteen of the new cases were locally transmitted infections, with Jilin province reporting eight new cases and Heilongjiang province reporting six. Hebei province reported one new case.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS