After a World health Organization (WHO) expert panel visited Wuhan to trace the source of the new coronavirus, some key information that had not previously come to light came to light. Peter Ben Embarek, head of the panel, said there were indications that the new coronavirus had spread widely in Wuhan in December of the previous year, on a larger scale than previously thought. The panel also found that 13 different strains of the virus already existed in Wuhan and is asking the Chinese side to provide blood samples from confirmed cases there for testing. It is also hoped that the panel will return to Wuhan in a few months to continue the investigation.
The WHO expert group that went to Wuhan to investigate the source of the new coronavirus ended its trip last week, and individual members were interviewed by different media to reveal the findings of the trip.
The team leader Ambarek said in an interview with CNN that during its visit to Wuhan, the WHO team was shown information on 174 cases of new coronavirus diagnosed in December of the previous year, of which 100 were confirmed by laboratory tests and the remaining 74 were found after clinical diagnosis. According to Ambarek, the number of people infected at that Time may have been more than 1,000, based on a ratio of about 15 percent of patients showing serious illness, but most of the symptoms were mild and may have gone undetected.
Ambarek also said the group first discovered that there were 13 different strains of the new coronavirus when it broke out in Wuhan the previous December. He believes that if more patient data can be reviewed, more clues to the geographic pattern and timing of the outbreak can be expected. The panel spoke with the first confirmed patient of the new coronavirus claimed by China, a 40-year-old clerk who was diagnosed on Dec. 8 of the previous year and had no record of travel.
Ambarek also revealed that for the first time, the panel obtained 13 sets of gene sequences from early cases, including those from the South China wholesale seafood market and those unrelated to the wet market, which it believes, when combined with data from other patients, will allow for a more accurate analysis of early transmission.
Ambarek declined to make a judgment on the development of the outbreak in Wuhan, but CNN quoted another Australian expert as saying that it showed that the new coronavirus may have been circulating in Wuhan for some time before December of the previous year.
And another member of the expert group, British epidemiologist Watson, was interviewed by the BBC, describing the visit to Wuhan as just the beginning of work to trace the origin of the virus, and that future investigations should not be limited to China. When asked whether he could be sure that the new coronavirus originated in China, Watson said he could not be sure.
In response to earlier criticism from panel members that the Chinese side had refused to provide raw data on patients with neo-coronavirus, Watson said that although the Chinese authorities had not provided all the raw data, they had seen a great deal of detailed information and had held discussions with the Chinese side on early cases.
Earlier, a panel member told the media that the Chinese authorities had refused to provide raw data on the earliest group of patients with New Crown pneumonia in the territory, including information on patients with New Crown pneumonia and those who had developed similar symptoms of New Crown before the outbreak in Wuhan, and that the two sides had exchanged heated words as a result.
China has always pointed out that the WHO expert group’s visit to Wuhan was an exchange and cooperation with the Chinese side on the traceability of the New Coronavirus, not an investigation, stressing that the Chinese side upholds an open, transparent and responsible attitude in cooperating with the WHO.
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