The World Health Organization (WHO) has said that an international scientists team, comprising 10 members will visit the Chinese city of Wuhan in January to investigate the origins of the novel coronavirus. It was reported that the virus was traced to a so-called "wet market" in Wuhan, Hubei province and it was the place from where the virus leapt animals to humans.
However, the experts now believe that it may simply have been augmented there.
A biologist of the WHO team told a leading media outlet that the WHO was not seeking to apportion blame, but rather to prevent future outbreaks, the BBC reported on Wednesday.
Fabian Leendertz of Germany's Robert Koch Institute said, "It's not about finding a guilty country, it's about trying to understand what happened and then see if, based on those data, we can try to reduce the risk in the future."
Unwilling to agree to an independent inquiry and it took many months for WHO to negotiate with Beijing and to be allowed access to the city.
The virus is thought to have come from a market in the city selling animals. But the search for the source has led to tensions, notably with the US.
President Donald Trump's administration has accused China of trying to hide the initial outbreak.
Leendertz said the aim was to find out when the virus began circulating and whether or not it originated in Wuhan. The mission was expected to last four or five weeks.
Research hints that coronaviruses capable of infecting humans may have been circling undetected in bats for decades.
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Last December, a Chinese doctor at Wuhan Central Hospital - Li Wenliang - tried to alert about a possible outbreak of a new disease to his fellow medical professionals, but was told by police to "stop making false comments" and was investigated for "spreading rumours".
Li died in February after contracting the virus while treating patients in the city.