Photo taken on Jan. 22, 2020 shows an exterior view of the headquarters of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland. (Xinhua/Liu Qu)

- "There is no evidence that the virus originated there" but "hypothetically, there are all conditions for the spread of the virus there."

- "The laboratory (the Wuhan Institute of Virology) is perfectly equipped." "It is hard for me to imagine that something could have leaked from there."

MOSCOW, Feb. 6 (Xinhua) Wuhan's Huanan seafood market may have made it possible for the novel coronavirus to spread, but it does not mean the virus originated there, a Russian expert has said.

"There is no evidence that the virus originated there" but "hypothetically, there are all conditions for the spread of the virus there," Vladimir Dedkov, a member of the World Health Organization's (WHO) expert team, was quoted as saying by Sputnik on Thursday.

The seafood market was linked to an early cluster of COVID-19 cases, but scientists have yet to come to an unequivocal conclusion regarding the role it played in the contagion.