Members of the World Health Organization (WHO) team tasked with investigating the origins of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) walk at a hotel in Wuhan, Hubei province, China January 29, 2021. REUTERS/Thomas Peter
WUHAN, China (Reuters) - A World Health Organization-led team of experts investigating the origins of COVID-19 on Friday visited a hospital in the Chinese city of Wuhan that was one of the first to treat patients in the early days of the outbreak.
After meeting with Chinese scientists earlier in the day, the team went to the Hubei Provincial Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine.
Zhang Jixian, director of the hospital s department of respiratory and critical care, has been cited by state media as the first to report the novel coronavirus, after treating an elderly couple in late 2019 whose CT scans showed differences from typical pneumonia.
WHO scientists hope that information on the earliest known cases of the new Covid-19, which was first identified in Wuhan, will help them better understand where it came from and prevent similar pandemics in the future
A World Health Organization-led team of experts investigating the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic began meeting with Chinese scientists on Friday, and the WHO said the group plans to visit labs, markets and hospitals in Wuhan.
The international WHO experts are on a mission to find out about the origins of the coronavirus. While in quarantine in Wuhan, they've had to make do with video calls to their Chinese counterparts.