WHO experts begin probe in Wuhan

Beijing/Wuhan: An assertive China cautioned against negative speculation and politicised interpretations over the origin of the Coronavirus to Wuhan, as a WHO team of experts stepped out of their hotel on Thursday ending their two-week quarantine to make field visits in the central Chinese city, where COVID-19 first emerged in 2019.

The 14-member World Health Organization team of international scientists, who had been confined to their hotel in Wuhan due to the quarantine, kicked off the field part of their month-long mission to explore how the Coronavirus transmitted presumably from bats or pangolins to humans.

Team members were seen boarding a bus outside their hotel in Wuhan in the noon after being cleared to leave following the mandatory isolation period. Some of the WHO experts took to Twitter to express their relief over completing the quarantine period.

Graduation!!! virologist Marion Koopmans of the Erasmus University Medical Centre in the Netherlands tweeted along with a picture of her holding an official medical form noting the end of the quarantine.

Congratulations! the team leader, WHO animal disease expert Peter Ben Embarek, wrote in reply. In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told the media that the expert team will conduct interviews and discussions with their Chinese colleagues while complying with China's epidemic prevention

regulations.