Australia's only scientist on Wuhan team delivers COVID-19 origin update
Australian scientist Professor Dominic Dwyer believes that COVID-19 started in China and had been circulating around the community much earlier than December 2019.
Dwyer is involved in the inquiry into the origins of COVID-19 and his views have been challenged by the Chinese scientists in the World Health Organisation joint investigation who believe the disease might've been brought into China on frozen food packets.
Dwyer, a microbiologist and infectious disease expert with NSW Health Pathology said that the evidence is "very limited" for an origin outside of China.
He was the only Australian in a 14-strong team working for the World Health Organisation.
WHO experts said last night that COVID-19 most likely appeared in humans after jumping from an animal, dismissing claims that the virus leaked from a Chinese lab.
"I think it started in China, I think the evidence for it starting elsewhere in the world is actually very limited," Professor Dwyer told 9News from hotel quarantine in Sydney.
"There is some evidence but it's not really very good.
"I think it's most likely that it came from a bat. We know that other viruses that are closely related to (COVID-19) are present in bats.
"We know that other viruses like MERS and SARS back in 2003 also came from bats. Now these bats don't respect borders of course so they are present not just in China but in other parts on South East Asia and indeed elsewhere around the world."
#EXCLUSIVE: Aussie scientist Dominic Dwyer has spoken to @9NewsAUS after returning from Wuhan, where he was on the WHO team investigating #COVID19
"I think it started in China. The evidence for it starting elsewhere in the world is very limited" - Interview up shortly #auspol pic.twitter.com/kSF5nN4Fve— Fiona Willan (@Fi_Willan) February 10, 2021
Despite China being less than thrilled with Australia for calling an inquiry, Dwyer said there was no hostility.
"The Chinese were very hospitable hosts, everyone worked together very well, it was a joint mission after all," he said.
"There were some clear differences of opinion and there were some quite firm and heated exchanges over things but in general everyone was trying to do the right thing and certainly WHO got more data than they've ever had before, and that's some real progress."
When asked if he believed there would be a definitive conclusion on how the virus started, Dwyer said he was hopeful.
"Many of these outbreaks actually take years to sort out, so part of the WHO work was advising what sort of studies need to be done to try and sort this out over the next year or so," he said.
"Remember with SARS it took well over a year before the bat virus was identified, I would expect it will be similar here. There's clearly a lot of work that needs to be done, not just in China but in the region and elsewhere around the world."