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.

Earlier reports quoted experts as saying that the geographical distribution of the cases indicated a close relationship between the epidemic and the seafood market.

Experts of the institute took the samples on Jan 1 and Jan 12 on instruction of the Chinese CDC.

Thirty-one of the 33 positive samples were collected from the western zone of the market, where booths of wildlife trading concentrated. The result suggests that the novel coronavirus outbreak is highly relevant to the trading of the wild animals, experts said.

The successful isolation of the novel coronavirus further substantiates that the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market contains a large quantity of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), according to the experts. - Xinhua