WUHAN: There is insufficient evidence to determine that Covid-19 was being spread in China's central Wuhan before December 2019, a joint WHO and Chinese expert mission into the origins of the pandemic in Wuhan said Tuesday.
"There is no indication of the transmission of the Sars-Cov-2 in the population of the period before December 2019," said Liang Wannian, head of the China team, at a press conference, adding that there was "not enough evidence" to determine if the virus had spread in the city prior to that.
WHO foreign expert Ben Embarak, who was based in the WHO's Beijing office for two years from 2009, backed up the assertion saying there was no evidence of "large outbreaks in Wuhan" before then.
The WHO team that includes experts from 10 nations has visited hospitals, research institutes, a traditional market tied to the outbreak and other sites.
The first clusters of COVID-19 were detected in Wuhan in late 2019, prompting the government to put the city of 11 million under a strict 76-day lockdown. China has since reported more than 89,000 cases and 4,600 deaths, with new cases largely concentrated in its northeast and local lockdowns and travel restrictions being imposed to contain the outbreaks.