China detects large quantity of novel coronavirus at Wuhan seafood market

A security guard standing outside the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market where the coronavirus was detected in Wuhan on January 24, 2020. - AFP

BEIJING (Xinhua): Experts of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have successfully isolated the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in the environmental samples of a seafood market in Wuhan, indicating that the virus stems from wild animals on sale at the market.

Thirty-three of the 585 environmental samples collected from Wuhan's Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market were found to contain the nucleic acid of the novel coronavirus, according to the National Institute for Viral Disease Control and Prevention under the China CDC.