Covid ‘patient zero’ may never be found says WHO after fears they ‘vanished’
Mystery surrounds the whereabouts of the coronavirus pandemic's first patient who the World Health Organisation admits may never be tracked down.
A Chinese scientist at a top secret lab in Wuhan, Huang Yanling, was suspected to be "patient zero" in reports months before the virus was officially acknowledged by Beijing.
It sparked rumours she was "disappeared" by China, either by transfer or cremated after dying from the virus.
The WHO's technical lead on the disease Maria Van Kerkhove did not name Yanling, but did admit the first patient may never be found.
She said: “We need to be careful about the use of the phrase patient zero, which many people indicate as the first initial case.
“We may never find who patient zero was. What we need to do is follow the science and follow the studies."
The US State Department has claimed the Chinese Communist Party stopped investigators from interviewing researchers in Wuhan "including those who were ill in the fall of 2019."
"Beijing continues today to withhold vital information that scientists need to protect the world from this deadly virus and the next one," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo added on Saturday.
There is a theory from US officials that the outbreak accidentally began in a Wuhan lab.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology denied claims the first person to contract coronavirus was from there, the Sun reports.
Bosses added Huang, who received a master's degree from the institute in 2015, had moved to work and live elsewhere and had not been back in years.
"She has never been infected by the virus and is in healthy condition," according to a statement on its website last February.
Covid 'patient zero' still missing a year after the outbreak and a global manhunt
"At a crucial time fighting against the epidemic, this rumour has greatly disrupted the institute's research work."
A post said to be from the scientist later appeared on the WeChat messaging service informing colleagues she was alive and claiming the reports were false.
She has since appeared to have vanished from social media and any mention of her appears to have disappeared from the institute’s website.
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China’s reluctance to produce Huang has fuelled theories that she is either dead or is being held by the state to cover up the institute’s role in the pandemic.
But Beijing’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying insisted today that a US State Department “fact sheet” published Friday was “full of fallacies".
“The so-called fact sheet is another lie sheet produced by the US side.
“This fully demonstrates that some US politicians are keen on violating science, hyping up conspiracy theories, spreading political viruses for their personal gains, while paying no attention to public security and people’s lives.
“This is also the last madness of Pompeo – Mr. Lies.”
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