WHO experts start to leave Wuhan after probe into origins of coronavirus

Kyodo News Posted at Feb 10 2021 09:31 PM Experts from the World Health Organization on Wednesday started to leave the central Chinese city of Wuhan for home after they completed an investigation into the origins of the novel coronavirus. Ken Maeda, a member of the WHO team and veterinary microbiologist at Japan's National Institute of Infectious Diseases, told Kyodo News at Wuhan airport, "We were able to conduct an adequate probe with the cooperation of the Chinese side." As a result of the investigation, the WHO group rejected a theory, advanced by the administration of former U.S. President Donald Trump, that the virus was accidentally leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. But the WHO team failed to clarify how the outbreak erupted in Wuhan in late 2019 and to identify how bats, believed to be the main natural host of the virus, passed it via other animals to humans. After quarantining for two weeks, the WHO experts began a full-fledged probe in late January with their Chinese counterparts. Earlier this month, they visited the controversial research laboratory, after carrying out on Jan. 31 an investigation into a market, where many people were confirmed to have been infected in the early days of the epidemic.

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