Coronavirus: no evidence new Beijing outbreak came from Europe, EU disease agency says
- Possible links between Xinfadi outbreak and Europe were sparked by comments that the strain was unlike other cases in Beijing months ago
- European CDC says ‘European clade’ is the most common in all parts of the world
The European Union’s disease control agency says there is not enough evidence to draw conclusions about the source of Beijing’s new outbreak of Covid-19, amid suspicion in China that the virus was imported to the capital from Europe.
Possible links to Europe began on Saturday when early investigations at the wholesale market found Covid-19 on cutting boards used to process imported salmon, causing Chinese importers to stop buying European salmon from suppliers.
Wu also said it did not necessarily mean the virus had been directly imported from Europe.
Giovanni Mancarella, a spokesman for the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said more information was needed to determine where the Beijing outbreak came from.
“Unless there is supporting epidemiological information, the sequence data is not enough to determine that the introduction is directly from Europe rather than just being part of a clade that was originally associated with Europe,” he said.
“Covid-19 is a global pandemic of an RNA virus which is constantly mutating, therefore it would not be surprising to see similar strains of the virus detected in Europe as in China, as we did in the early phases of the European epidemic,” Mancarella said.