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On Sunday, the team visited the wet market believed to be at the heart of the spread of the disease: the now disinfected and closed Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan city, where a first group of Pneumonia-like illnesses were first noticed by doctors in mid-December 2019. The market has become the anecdotal “zero point” for COVID-19, although later studies have suggested it may have started elsewhere.
Peter Ben Embarek, the WHO team leader and food safety specialist, told CNN that “even though the place had been sanitized to some extent, all the stores are there – and the equipment is here. This gives you a good idea of the state of the market in terms of maintenance, infrastructure, hygiene and the movement of goods and people. “The team was able to talk to residents and workers,” Ben Embarek said. “He warned that it was too early in their investigations to draw any conclusions.
“It is clear that something has happened in this market,” said Ben Embarek. “But it could also be that other places have the same role, and this one was chosen simply because some doctors were smart enough to tie together a few sporadic cases.”
Another WHO team member, Professor Thea Fisher, told CNN she was surprised at “the usefulness” of seeing a market that has been deserted for a year. “We had some very good public health specialists with us who had actually done some of the environmental sampling in the market. … telling us exactly where they had taken the ventilation system samples.”
“It’s a shock to see the place,” said another member of the team, environmentalist and zoologist Peter Daszak. “All the stores are empty, the equipment is still there. It’s a bit strange.”
Ben Embarek also revealed that Chinese officials had provided the WHO team with important data on influenza, or flu-like illnesses, spotted by China’s sophisticated disease surveillance systems in and around the country. Hubei region in the months leading up to the December 2019 outbreak.
“We have data for the whole province and also beyond – looking at data from other neighboring provinces and going back several months … There is a lot to look at. It is important to be able in the previous months [the outbreak] get down to a much lower level, and try to pick up the signals, and see if there was anything there that we could relate to, ”he said.
Ben Embarek described the approach of the Chinese authorities, who had already been criticized for the slowness of the admission of the WHO team, as “transparent”.
“We see what we ask to see,” he said, adding that Chinese authorities have been flexible and that he is hoping for future trips after this first 14-day mission.
But Fisher said the job was at times complicated by the sheer size of the group making some visits to China. “It’s my hope with some of the visits in the next few days that we can go in small groups. It’s more difficult to build a relationship [with an interviewee] in a very short period of time … if you are 50 people seated to listen. “
Nick Paton Walsh reported from London and Sandi Sidhu from Hong Kong.
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