WUHAN, Feb. 9 (Xinhua)--Wuhan's Huanan seafood market may have made it possible for the novel coronavirus to spread, but that does not mean the virus originated there.
This remark was made by Russian expert Vladimir Dedkov, who is a member of the World Health Organization's (WHO) expert team currently in China to investigate the origin of COVID-19.
He said, "There is no evidence that the virus originated there but hypothetically, there are all conditions for the spread of the virus there."
The seafood market was linked to an early cluster of COVID-19 cases, but scientists have yet to come to an unequivocal conclusion regarding the role it played in the contagion.
Dedkov also refuted the theory of a virus leakage while visiting the Wuhan Institute of Virology along with nine other WHO experts.
He said, "Of course, it was important for our mission to visit this facility, talk to our colleagues and see how everything is organized there."
Dedkov added that as the laboratory is professionally equipped, it is hard for him to imagine that something could have leaked from there.
