Wuhan (China) (AFP)
WHO experts went to Wuhan (central China) on Saturday to the first hospital to have received Covid-19 patients, on the second day of their field investigation into the origin of the coronavirus.
The first country hit by the epidemic, China is almost silent on this ultra-politically sensitive visit to Beijing, accused of having been slow to react to the first cases of Covid.
The precise timetable of experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) thus remains opaque: their messages on social networks as well as those of the WHO constitute the rare sources of information.
This establishment is the first to have welcomed patients with what was then a mysterious virus, in the city where the coronavirus pandemic started at the end of 2019.
The visit was an "important opportunity to speak directly with the doctors who were on the ground at this critical moment in the fight against COVID!", Tweeted Peter Daszak, one of the members of the delegation.
A strong doubt remains however on the interest of the elements that the investigators will be able to gather, more than a year after the start of the pandemic and in front of the Chinese authorities known for their opacity on the controversial subjects.
- 'Very very busy schedule' -
Tainted by controversial management during the first weeks of the epidemic, the communist power has launched a huge exhibition in Wuhan to restore its image and celebrate the claimed victory of China against the coronavirus.
Part of the WHO delegation visited the site in the afternoon.
Huge portraits of President Xi Jinping dominate the ensemble, while smaller panels pay tribute to caregivers who succumbed to the virus, amid full-bodied models and slogans praising the Chinese Communist Party.
The World Health Organization on Friday tried to temper expectations around this mission.
"I would like to warn everyone: success in an investigation into animal-to-human transmission does not necessarily mean finding a source on the first mission," Michael Ryan told reporters. , the director of emergency operations at WHO.
Despite a "very, very busy agenda" from the expert team in Wuhan, Ryan remained vague on their agenda.
However, he referred to visits in particular to the Wuhan Institute of Virology and to a city market, where exotic animals were sold alive and where the virus could be transmitted to humans.
The Trump administration had raised the hypothesis that the Covid-19 virus could have escaped from the institute of virology by contaminating researchers.
© 2021 AFP