An international team of scientists led by the World Health Organization arrived on Thursday in China’s central city of Wuhan to investigate the origins of the novel coronavirus that sparked the pandemic.
The group arrived late in the morning on a budget airline from Singapore and was expected to head into two weeks of quarantine. They had been set to arrive earlier this month, and China’s delay of their visit drew rare public criticism from the agency’s chief.
The team left the airport terminal through a plastic quarantine tunnel marked “epidemic prevention passage” for international arrivals and boarded a cordoned-off bus that was guarded by half a dozen security staff in full protective gear.
Team members did not speak to reporters, although some waved and took pictures of the media from the bus as it departed.
The United States, which has accused China of hiding the extent of its initial outbreak a year ago, has called for a “transparent” WHO-led investigation and criticized the terms of the visit, under which Chinese experts have done the first phase of research.
The team arrived as China battles a resurgence of cases in its northeast after managing for months to nearly stamp out domestic infections.
Peter Ben Embarek, the WHO’s top expert on animal diseases that cross to other species, who went to China on a preliminary mission last July, is leading the 10 independent experts, a WHO spokesman said.
Hung Nguyen, a Vietnamese biologist who is part of the team, told Reuters that he did not expect any restrictions on the group’s work in China, but cautioned the team might not find clear answers.
After completing quarantine, the team will spend two weeks interviewing people from research institutes, hospitals, and the seafood market in Wuhan where the new pathogen is believed to have emerged, Hung added.
The team would mainly stay in Wuhan, he told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday during a stopover in Singapore.