The World Health Organization team of experts has arrived in Wuhan, China to investigate the origin of the coronavirus.
The 10 scientists landed for their investigations on Thursday.
They were received by Chinese officials who conducted throat swabs on them and taken to a hotel where they must complete a two-week quarantine before starting their work.
WHO said establishing the pathway of the virus from animals to humans is essential to preventing future outbreaks.
But despite painstaking months of negotiations over their remit, the team was blocked from arriving last week — a sign of the political sensitivity of a virus origin story muddied by recrimination between nations, conjecture and denials.
Peter Ben Embarek, team lead, said the group would start with a mandatory hotel quarantine.
“And then after the two weeks, we would be able to move around and meet our Chinese counterparts in person and go to the different sites that we will want to visit,” he said.
He warned it “could be a very long journey before we get a full understanding of what happened”.
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“I don’t think we will have clear answers after this initial mission, but we will be on the way,” Embarek added.
“The idea is to advance a number of studies that were already designed and decided upon some months ago to get us a better understanding of what happened,” he said.
