The World Health Organisation have revealed details of their investigation into the origins of COVID-19
Video / AP
The initial outbreak of coronavirus in Wuhan in December 2019 was much wider than previously thought, World Health Organisation (WHO) investigators have found.
The team, who have been looking into the origins of Covid-19 in the Chinese province, are now urgently seeking access to hundreds of thousands of blood samples from the city they have not yet been allowed to examine.
In a lengthy interview over the weekend, the mission's lead investigator, Peter Ben Embarek, told CNN that the team had found multiple signs of the wide-ranging spread of the virus in 2019 and established there were "over a dozen" strains in Wuhan already in December.
The view of Huanan seafood market on February 9, 2021 in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. Photo / AP
"The virus was circulating widely in December, which is a new finding," Dr Embarek told the network.
He added that the team of scientists were presented with 174 cases of Covid-19 in and around Wuhan during December, with 100 confirmed by laboratory results and the remaining 74 through the clinical diagnosis of each patient's symptoms.
The larger number of cases, Dr Embarek said, could mean the virus hit more than 1000 people in Wuhan within the month.
"We haven't done any modelling of that since. But we know … in big ballpark figures … out of the infected population, about 15 per cent end up severe cases, and the vast majority are mild cases," he said.
"Some" of the cases were from the markets – which includes the Huanan seafood market, which experts initially believed was ground zero for the virus – and some were not linked to markets, Dr Embarek said.
The discovery of the 13 virus strains could also signal it had been circulating long before the first case was picked up, as some virologists have previously suggested.
"As there was already genetic diversity in SARS-CoV-2 sequences sampled from Wuhan in December 2019, it is likely that the virus was circulating for a while longer than that month alone," University of Sydney virologist, Professor Edward Holmes, told CNN.
Peter Ben Embarek, of the World Health Organisation team holds up a chart showing pathways of transmission of the virus during a joint press conference. Photo / AP
Plainclothes security personnel prepare for duty outside the conference centre where a press conference for the World Health Organisation team will be held. Photo / AP
"These data fit with other analyses that the virus emerged in the human population earlier than December 2019 and that there was a period of cryptic transmission before it was detected in the Huanan market."
Details about the mission have slowly emerged since Dr Embarek's three-hour press conference last week, where he revealed experts' conclusion that it is "extremely unlikely" the virus escaped from a lab or originated in bats, as initially thought.
Dr Embarek said that according to their research, an intermediary host species is "the most likely pathway (for crossover into humans) and one that will require more studies and more specific targeted research".
The panel said it was likely other animals may serve as reservoirs, including those from the "feline family", given the high susceptibility of minks and cats to the virus.
The team also found that "cold chain" transmission through the transport of frozen goods was possible and warranted further investigation.
It's a theory that China itself posited in retaliation to former US president Donald Trump's baseless accusations early last year that the nation had leaked coronavirus from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
A security official moves journalists away from the Wuhan Institute of Virology after a World Health Organisation team arrived for a field visit in Wuhan. Photo / AP
"The market was dealing primarily with frozen animal products and mainly seafood but there were also vendors selling products from domesticated wildlife and imported products," Dr Embarek said.
"We know the virus can survive in conditions that are found in these cold, frozen environments, but we don't really understand if the virus can transmit to humans."
