MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 11th February, 2021) The World Health Organization's (WHO) team investigating the coronavirus' origins is not ruling out that the virus was already spreading in China as far back as October 2019, The Wall Street Journal reported.
According to the newspaper, some 90 people were hospitalized with coronavirus-like symptoms in central China in the two months before first cases were detected in the city of Wuhan. In the past few months, Chinese authorities tested two-thirds of these people for antibodies, but found no traces that they had had the virus.
The WHO investigators reportedly suggest that any antibodies could have dropped to undetectable levels due to time passed.
"Further studies are needed," WHO mission chief Peter Ben Embarek was quoted as saying.
The WHO team therefore called on China to carry out wider testing of blood samples collected in fall 2019 around Hubei province.
The international expert team finished their mission in China on Tuesday. At a press conference, they announced that any leak of the virus from a lab was unlikely, while the wet market's role remains unclear.
Chinese expert Liang Wannian added that there was no evidence of COVID-19 circulation in China's Wuhan before December 2019, and there was no death rate spike in Hubei province in the period from July-December 2019.
