Here's what investigators found about China's role in COVID-19 spread

A team of scientists sent by the World Health Organisation (WHO) probing the emergence of COVID-19 in China's Wuhan are wrapping up a month-long investigation and have found “important clues” about a Wuhan seafood market’s role in the outbreak.

The investigators stated that they have come across significant findings, which they have denied to reveal, until the official release. The objective of the entire mission was to understand how the virus transmitted from animals to humans.

As per a report by Bloomberg, New York-based zoologist Dr Peter Daszak, who is assisting the World Health Organization-sponsored mission, said he anticipates the main findings will be released before his planned February 10 departure. Speaking from the central city of Wuhan, where coronavirus started in December 2019, Daszak said the 14-member group worked with experts in China and visited key hot spots and research centres to uncover “some real clues about what happened.”

Nearly 105.7 million cases and 2.3 million deaths have been caused by COVID-19 worldwide. 

What do researchers say?

Based on subsequent investigation, researchers have got a deeper insight into the source of the outbreak that has caused over 10 crore infections and over 23 lakh deaths across the world.

Notably, the researchers are now trying to bring everything together. Scientists in China who took environmental samples inside the seafood market also identified some spots where traces of SARS-COV-2 were detected.

Amid the research, there were also suspicions that the virus escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is a maximum bio-containment laboratory where bat-borne diseases are studied. However, scientists have denied this theory.

Meanwhile, Peter Ben Embarek, the Danish WHO food safety expert leading the international team, said his group will not recommend further investigation into the theory that the virus accidentally leaked from labs conducting coronavirus research, the Washington Post reported.

The expert teams have laid hands on some real clues about what happened and will be disclosed with a solid explanation and proof before the world.