A 13-member World Health Organization team will visit the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Hunan seafood market as part of its investigation into the origins of COVID-19, the organization said Friday.
The experts will visit the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a facility that investigates coronavirus linked to bats.
The team will also visit the Hunan seafood market, a marketplace that was linked to clusters during the early days of the novel coronavirus' emergence in China.
It is expected the organization will obtain samples from the market. These might provide breakthroughs in the investigation. Some stalls sold wild animals.
Scientists initially suspected these animals might have been the origin of COVID-19.
Aside from the institute and market, the organization will visit several hospitals in Wuhan.
As the World Health Organization investigators begin their work in determining the origin of the novel coronavirus, it is expected that scrutiny will come with the results of the much-anticipated inquiry.
Team member and Dutch virologist Marion Koopmans said the team was "trying to look at this from a scientific perspective."
Koopmans said the organization and its China scientists have been spending a lot of time during a 14-day quarantine discussing points of the investigation through video calls. She said it will take time before solid results come out of the probe.
The organization previously said investigators in China were earlier denied entry. China has since said this was a misunderstanding.
The organization team completed quarantine Thursday.
Organization professor Dale Fisher said "It's not about politics or blame but getting to the bottom of a scientific question."
Fisher said most scientists still believe the virus was a "natural event."
