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 The team of 15 had all tested negative for the disease prior to
leaving their home countries, and underwent further testing while in
transit in Singapore.
The results of nucleic acid tests were negative but showed two of
the members had coronavirus antibodies, the Geneva-based agency said
in a tweet.
"They are being retested for both IgM and IgG antibodies," the WHO
said.
It is the latest setback for a mission beset by delay as well as
concern over how much access the team will get.
The rest of the team arrived in Wuhan from Singapore late on
Thursday morning on a budget airline and they were expected to head
into two weeks of quarantine.
"Relevant epidemic prevention and control requirements and
regulations will be strictly enforced," Chinese foreign ministry
spokesman Zhao Lijian told a regular briefing on Thursday in
response to a question about the two team members.
The team tasked with investigating the origins of the novel
coronavirus that sparked the global pandemic had been set to arrive
earlier this month. China's delay of their visit drew rare public
criticism from the head of the WHO.
The group left the airport terminal in Wuhan through a plastic
quarantine tunnel marked "epidemic prevention passage" for
international arrivals and boarded a cordoned-off bus that was
guarded by half a dozen security staff in full protective gear. The
coronavirus was initially linked to a seafood market in the central
city of Wuhan.
Team members did not speak to reporters, although some waved and
took pictures of the media from the bus as it departed.
The United States, which has accused China of hiding the extent of
its initial outbreak a year ago, has called for a "transparent"
WHO-led investigation and criticised the terms of the visit, under
which Chinese experts have done the first phase of research.
LOCAL OUTBREAKS
The team arrived in China as the country battles a resurgence of
coronavirus cases in its northeast after managing to nearly stamp
out domestic infections in recent months.
Peter Ben Embarek, the WHO's top expert on animal diseases that
cross to other species, who went to China on a preliminary mission
last July, was leading the team going to Wuhan, a WHO spokesman said
previously.
Hung Nguyen, a Vietnamese biologist who was part of the team, told
Reuters during a stopover in Singapore on Wednesday that he did not
expect any restrictions on the group's work in China, but cautioned
the team might not find clear answers.
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 After completing quarantine,
the team will spend two weeks interviewing
people from research institutes, hospitals and
the seafood market in Wuhan where the new
pathogen is believed to have emerged, Hung
added.
The group would mainly stay in Wuhan, he said.
Last week, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom
Ghebreyesus said he was "very disappointed" that
China had still not authorised the team's entry
for the long-awaited mission, but on Monday, he
welcomed its announcement of their planned
arrival. "What we would like to
do with the international team and counterparts in China is to go
back in the Wuhan environment, re-interview in-depth the initial
cases, try to find other cases that were not detected at that time
and try to see if we can push back the history of the first cases,"
Ben Embarek said in November.
China has been pushing a narrative via state media that the virus
existed abroad before it was discovered in Wuhan, citing the
presence of the virus on imported frozen food packaging and
scientific papers claiming it had been circulating in Europe in
2019. "We are looking for the answers here that may
save us in future - not culprits and not people to blame," the WHO's
top emergency expert, Mike Ryan, told reporters this week, adding
that the WHO was willing to go "anywhere and everywhere" to find out
how the virus emerged.
Other team member Marion Koopmans, a virologist at Erasmus
University Medical Center in the Netherlands, said last month it was
too soon to say whether the SARS-CoV-2 virus had jumped directly
from bats to humans or had an intermediate animal host.
"At this stage what I think we need is a very open mind when trying
to step back into the events that led eventually to this pandemic,"
she told reporters.
(Reporting by Thomas Peter in Wuhan, Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva and
John Geddie in Singapore; Additional Reporting by Cate Cadell in
Beijing; Editing by Tony Munroe, Gerry Doyle and Ana Nicolaci da
Costa)
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