China experts fully out to conducted "lots of virus tracing work,"

Members of the World Health Organization investigative team visit Huanan seafood market in Wuhan, China, on January 31.  Getty Images

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) responded to news exclusive report on how the World Health Organization (WHO) panel will recommend "deeper" study of early Covid-19 clues, saying that Chinese experts conducted "lots of virus tracing work."

“Chinese experts conducted lots of virus tracing work about the Huanan seafood market,” the MOFA said in a statement sent to CNN. "They systematically collected and tested samples of market environment, frozen food inventories, animal breeding farms in the upstream supply chain in China. Based on current information, it is not possible to determine how the virus was introduced into the Huanan seafood market." 

The World Health Organization's preliminary report into the origins of the novel coronavirus will recommend more extensive contact tracing of the first known patient with Covid-19 in Wuhan, China, as well as the supply chain of nearly a dozen traders in the Huanan seafood market, which is thought to have played a role in the early spread of Covid-19 in late 2019, according to investigators familiar with the draft report.

Independent scientists told CNN the rudimentary investigative work being recommended should have been done many months previously by Chinese scientists looking into the virus' origin. They said they found it "surprising" and "implausible" Chinese scientists had not already done that work.

In response, the MOFA statement added the supply chain was "not only from China, but also from outside China" and that the joint expert group had said, "there is no geographical limit to the next step of the study." CNN reported on Sunday that the WHO panel will recommend the immediate investigation of the supply chain of the Huanan seafood market. 

MOFA also said the WHO panel and Chinese scientists were not conducting an "investigation" but "joint research on tracing the origin of the virus" after CNN asked for comment on further recommendations by those involved in WHO mission to "investigate" the origins.