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The Wuhan Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market (), simply known as the Huanan Seafood Market (''Huanan'' means '
South China South China () is a geographical and cultural region that covers the southernmost part of China. Its precise meaning varies with context. A notable feature of South China in comparison to the rest of China is that most of its citizens are not n ...
'), was a live animal and
seafood market A fish market is a marketplace for selling fish and fish products. It can be dedicated to wholesale trade between fishermen and fish merchants, or to the sale of seafood to individual consumers, or to both. Retail fish markets, a type of wet mar ...
in
Jianghan District Jianghan District (, Yangtze and Han River) forms part of the urban core of and is one of 13 urban districts of the prefecture-level city of Wuhan, the capital of Hubei Province, China. The district is part of the historical Hankou. Geography ...
,
Wuhan Wuhan (, ; ; ) is the capital of Hubei Province in the People's Republic of China. It is the largest city in Hubei and the most populous city in Central China, with a population of over eleven million, the ninth-most populous Chinese city a ...
City A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...
, the capital of
Hubei Hubei (; ; alternately Hupeh) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, and is part of the Central China region. The name of the province means "north of the lake", referring to its position north of Dongting Lake. The p ...
Province in
Central China Central China () is a geographical and a loosely defined cultural region that includes the provinces of Henan, Hubei and Hunan. Jiangxi is sometimes also regarded to be part of this region. Central China is now officially part of South Cent ...
. The market became widely known worldwide after being identified as the 'Ground Zero' site of
COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quick ...
and the resulting
pandemic A pandemic () is an epidemic of an infectious disease that has spread across a large region, for instance multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial number of individuals. A widespread endemic disease with a stable number of in ...
. The
World Health Organization The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level o ...
was notified on 31 December 2019 about an outbreak of pneumonia in Wuhan. Of the initial 41 people hospitalized with pneumonia who were officially identified as having laboratory-confirmed
SARS-CoV-2 Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‑CoV‑2) is a strain of coronavirus that causes COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019), the respiratory illness responsible for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The virus previously had a ...
infection by 2 January 2020, two-thirds were exposed to the market. The market was opened on 19 June 2002 and closed permanently on 1 January 2020 for sanitary procedures and disinfection. Thirty-three out of 585 environmental samples obtained from the market indicated evidence of
coronavirus disease Coronavirus diseases are caused by viruses in the coronavirus subfamily, a group of related RNA viruses that cause diseases in mammals and birds. In humans and birds, the group of viruses cause respiratory tract infections that can range from ...
(COVID-19) outbreak, according to the
Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CCDC; ) is an institution directly under the National Health Commission, based in Changping District, Beijing, China. Established in 1983, it works to protect public health and safety ...
.


Facility and operations

The market occupied over and had over 1,000 tenants. It is reported to have been the largest seafood wholesale market in
Central China Central China () is a geographical and a loosely defined cultural region that includes the provinces of Henan, Hubei and Hunan. Jiangxi is sometimes also regarded to be part of this region. Central China is now officially part of South Cent ...
, with wild animals sold in its western zone. The market was located in the newer part of the city, near shops and apartment blocks, about from Hankou railway station, and close to the
Wuhan Center for Disease Control The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CCDC; ) is an institution directly under the National Health Commission, based in Changping District, Beijing, China. Established in 1983, it works to protect public health and saf ...
. In late 2019, the market passed city official inspections according to ''The Wall Street Journal''. However, ''Time'' reported it to have "unsanitary" conditions. It had narrow lanes and stalls in close proximity, where livestock were kept alongside dead animals. According to ''Business Insider'', it was common to see animals openly slaughtered and carcasses skinned in the market. The ''New York Times'' reported that "sanitation was dismal with poor ventilation and garbage piled on wet floors." The Huanan seafood market is the ground floor of the building, it has been sanitized in depth and it isn't planned to reopen. On the second floor there is Huanan Glasses Wholesale City (华南眼镜批发城) which closed only during the Wuhan lockdown and is still in operation.


Items sold

With local demand present for the consumption of exotic animals, the market also offered exotic game ('' ye wei'' in Chinese) and other wild animals for sale, a feature uncommon in most Chinese
wet market A wet market (also called a public market or a traditional market) is a marketplace selling fresh foods such as meat, fish, produce and other consumption-oriented perishable goods in a non-supermarket setting, as distinguished from " dry mark ...
s. A price list posted by one vendor on the popular Chinese review site
Dazhong Dianping Meituan (, literally "beautiful group"), formerly Meituan-Dianping, is a Chinese shopping platform for locally found consumer products and retail services including entertainment, dining, delivery, travel and other services. The company is headqu ...
listed 112 items including a number of wild animals. The ''
South China Morning Post The ''South China Morning Post'' (''SCMP''), with its Sunday edition, the ''Sunday Morning Post'', is a Hong Kong-based English-language newspaper owned by Alibaba Group. Founded in 1903 by Tse Tsan-tai and Alfred Cunningham, it has remained ...
'' reported on 29 January 2020 that the market had a section selling around "120 wildlife animals across 75 species." It was incorrectly reported that
koala The koala or, inaccurately, koala bear (''Phascolarctos cinereus''), is an arboreal herbivorous marsupial native to Australia. It is the only extant representative of the family Phascolarctidae and its closest living relatives are the ...
s were sold at the market. The price list included "树熊" (). This term is used for koalas in Chinese communities in Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong, but in China they are called "考拉" (read as "kaǒlā"). At the Huanan market, 'tree bear' referred to large rodents. According to a study published in
Scientific Reports ''Scientific Reports'' is a peer-reviewed open-access scientific mega journal published by Nature Portfolio, covering all areas of the natural sciences. The journal was established in 2011. The journal states that their aim is to assess sole ...
in June 2021, 38 wildlife species, including 31 protected species, were sold between May 2017 and November 2019 in Wuhan's wet markets (Huanan seafood market, Baishazhou market, Dijiao outdoor pet market and Qiyimen live animal market) for food and as pets. These species included
raccoon dog The common raccoon dog (''Nyctereutes procyonoides''), also called the Chinese or Asian raccoon dog, is a small, heavy-set, fox-like canid native to East Asia. Named for its raccoon-like face markings, it is most closely related to foxes. Common ...
s, Amur hedgehogs, Siberian weasels,
hog badger Hog badgers are three species of mustelid in the genus ''Arctonyx''. They represent one of the two genera in the subfamily Melinae, alongside the true badgers (genus '' Meles''). Taxonomy ''Arctonyx'' was formerly considered a monotypic genus ...
s,
Asian badger The Asian badger (''Meles leucurus''), also known as the sand badger, is a species of badger native to Mongolia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the Korean Peninsula and Russia. Characteristics The Asian badger is mostly lighter in colour than ...
s,
Chinese hare The Chinese hare (''Lepus sinensis'') is a species of mammal in the family Leporidae. It is found in China, Taiwan and Vietnam. Taxonomy The Chinese hare was first described by John Edward Gray in 1832. The Korean hare (''Lepus coreanus'') was ...
s, Pallas's squirrels,
masked palm civet The masked palm civet (''Paguma larvata''), also called the gem-faced civet, is a palm civet species native to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. It has been listed as least concern on the IUCN Red List since 2008 as it occurs in many p ...
s,
Chinese bamboo rat The Chinese bamboo rat (''Rhizomys sinensis'') is a species of rodent in the family Spalacidae found in southern China, northern Myanmar, and northern Vietnam. Its habitat is bamboo thickets usually at high elevations, pine forests, and plantati ...
s, Malayan porcupines,
coypu The nutria (''Myocastor coypus''), also known as the coypu, is a large, herbivorous, semiaquatic rodent. Classified for a long time as the only member of the family Myocastoridae, ''Myocastor'' is now included within Echimyidae, the family of t ...
s,
marmot Marmots are large ground squirrels in the genus ''Marmota'', with 15 species living in Asia, Europe, and North America. These herbivores are active during the summer, when they can often be found in groups, but are not seen during the winter, ...
s,
red fox The red fox (''Vulpes vulpes'') is the largest of the true foxes and one of the most widely distributed members of the Order (biology), order Carnivora, being present across the entire Northern Hemisphere including most of North America, Europe ...
es,
mink Mink are dark-colored, semiaquatic, carnivorous mammals of the genera '' Neogale'' and '' Mustela'' and part of the family Mustelidae, which also includes weasels, otters, and ferrets. There are two extant species referred to as "mink": ...
s,
red squirrel The red squirrel (''Sciurus vulgaris'') is a species of tree squirrel in the genus ''Sciurus'' common throughout Europe and Asia. The red squirrel is an arboreal, primarily herbivorous rodent. In Great Britain, Ireland, and in Italy numbe ...
s,
wild boar The wild boar (''Sus scrofa''), also known as the wild swine, common wild pig, Eurasian wild pig, or simply wild pig, is a suid native to much of Eurasia and North Africa, and has been introduced to the Americas and Oceania. The species i ...
s and
complex-toothed flying squirrel The complex-toothed flying squirrel (''Trogopterus xanthipes'') occurs in the southern Chinese provinces Hubei, Hunan, Guizhou, Sichuan, and Yunnan. The common name refers to the teeth, which differ from those of other species of flying squirrels ...
s. The wild animals on sale suffered poor welfare and hygiene conditions and were capable of hosting a wide range of infectious
zoonotic A zoonosis (; plural zoonoses) or zoonotic disease is an infectious disease of humans caused by a pathogen (an infectious agent, such as a bacterium, virus, parasite or prion) that has jumped from a non-human (usually a vertebrate) to a human. ...
diseases or disease-bearing parasites. No pangolin or bat species were among these animals for sale.


Link to COVID-19

In December 2019, an epidemic of a
pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severit ...
cluster may refer to: Science and technology Astronomy * Cluster (spacecraft), constellation of four European Space Agency spacecraft * Asteroid cluster, a small asteroid family * Cluster II (spacecraft), a European Space Agency mission to study th ...
occurred in Wuhan. By 2 January 2020, a new strain of coronavirus, later determined to be
SARS-CoV-2 Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‑CoV‑2) is a strain of coronavirus that causes COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019), the respiratory illness responsible for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The virus previously had a ...
, was confirmed in an initial 41 people hospitalized with the pneumonia, two-thirds of whom had direct exposure to the market. As coronaviruses (like SARS-CoV and
MERS-CoV ''Middle East respiratory syndrome–related coronavirus'' (''MERS-CoV''), or EMC/2012 ( HCoV-EMC/2012), is the virus that causes Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). It is a species of coronavirus which infects humans, bats, and camels. Th ...
) mainly circulate among non-human animals and with a link between the pneumonia outbreak and the market being established, it was suspected that the virus may have been passed from an animal to humans (
zoonosis A zoonosis (; plural zoonoses) or zoonotic disease is an infectious disease of humans caused by a pathogen (an infectious agent, such as a bacterium, virus, parasite or prion) that has jumped from a non-human (usually a vertebrate) to a human. ...
). Bats were initially suggested to be the source of the virus, although it remains unclear if bats were sold there. Later studies hypothesized that pangolins may be the intermediate host of the virus originating from bats, analogous to the relationship between SARS-CoV and
civet A civet () is a small, lean, mostly nocturnal mammal native to tropical Asia and Africa, especially the tropical forests. The term civet applies to over a dozen different species, mostly from the family Viverridae. Most of the species diversit ...
s.
Phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek φυλή/ φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups ...
analysis indicates that pangolins are a potential
reservoir host In infectious disease ecology and epidemiology, a natural reservoir, also known as a disease reservoir or a reservoir of infection, is the population of organisms or the specific environment in which an infectious pathogen naturally lives and re ...
rather than the intermediate host of SARS-CoV-2. While there is scientific consensus that bats are the ultimate source of coronaviruses, SARS-CoV-2 originated from a pangolin, jumped back to bats, and then jumped to humans, according to phylogenetic analysis. Therefore, a specific population of bats is more likely to be the intermediate host for SARS-CoV-2 than a pangolin, while an evolutionary ancestor to bats was the source for general coronaviruses. Despite the role that the market played in the pandemic, it is yet unclear whether the novel coronavirus outbreak started in the market. The earliest date for first symptoms was reported on 1 December 2019 in a person who did not have any exposure to the market or to the remaining affected 40 people. A paper from a large group of Chinese researchers from several institutions, published in ''
The Lancet ''The Lancet'' is a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal and one of the oldest of its kind. It is also the world's highest-impact academic journal. It was founded in England in 1823. The journal publishes original research articles ...
'', offered details about the first 41 hospitalized patients who had confirmed infections with SARS-CoV-2. Their data showed 13 of the initial 41 people found with the novel coronavirus had no link with the market, a significant figure according to infectious diseases specialist Daniel Lucey. In a later publication, ''The Lancet'' reported that of the first 99 people confirmed with COVID-19 in Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital between 1 and 20 January 2020, 49 had a history of exposure to the market. The publication nevertheless did not opinionate on whether the market was the origin or just a key link in the epidemic. In an attempt to discover the origin of SARS-CoV-2, samples from the market's animals were also taken between 1 and 12 January 2020. In late January 2020, the
Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CCDC; ) is an institution directly under the National Health Commission, based in Changping District, Beijing, China. Established in 1983, it works to protect public health and safety ...
revealed that the virus was found in 33 out of 585 of environmental samples taken, 31 of which came from the area of the market where wildlife was particularly found. This was another indication of the role that the market played, but its identification as the origin of the epidemic has been disputed. A review published on 24 January 2020, noted that the market was not associated with any
COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quick ...
cases outside of China. In May 2020, George Gao, the director of the
Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CCDC; ) is an institution directly under the National Health Commission, based in Changping District, Beijing, China. Established in 1983, it works to protect public health and safety ...
, said animal samples collected from the seafood market had tested negative for the virus, indicating that the market was the site of an early
superspreading event A superspreading event (SSEV) is an event in which an infectious disease is spread much more than usual, while an unusually contagious organism infected with a disease is known as a superspreader. In the context of a human-borne illness, a super ...
, but it was not the site of the initial outbreak. On 11 December 2020,
Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was est ...
reported that the market was still empty and barricaded. On 31 January 2021, a team of scientists led by the
World Health Organization The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level o ...
visited the wet market to investigate the origins of COVID-19. The WHO investigation determined that despite cluster cases there in an early outbreak and some contaminated surfaces found, no infected animal was found, concluding that human to human transmission at the market was likely, with the origin site still unknown. In late July 2022, two papers were published in the journal ''Science'', both describing evidence that the pandemic likely began at the market, and probably did not originate at a laboratory.


Responses


Closure

On 1 January 2020, in response to the initial outbreak of the pneumonia cluster, the health authorities closed the market to conduct investigations, clean and disinfect the location.


Ban on wild animal trade

Chinese environmentalists, researchers and state media have called for stricter regulation of exotic animal trade in wet markets. Several Chinese scientists have called for bans on wildlife trade since 2003. On 22 January 2020, a ban on the sale of all wild animal products in Wuhan was announced. In May 2020, the city banned eating wild animals and limited hunting and breeding of wild animals. On 24 February 2020, the Chinese government announced that the trade and consumption of wild animals would be banned throughout China, amidst mounting domestic criticism of the industry. However, the ban does not cover the consumption of wild animal products in
traditional Chinese medicine Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is an alternative medical practice drawn from traditional medicine in China. It has been described as "fraught with pseudoscience", with the majority of its treatments having no logical mechanism of acti ...
, according to ''The New York Times''.


See also

*
COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei The COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei was first manifested by a cluster of mysterious pneumonia in Wuhan, the provincial capital of Hubei, China. A Wuhan hospital notified the local center for disease control and prevention (CDC) and health commissions ...
*
Wet markets in China In China, wet markets are traditional markets that sell fresh meat, produce, and other perishable goods. They are the most prevalent food outlet in urban regions of China but have faced increasing competition from supermarkets. Since the 1990s, ...
* Wuhan 2019 Military World Games *
Wuhan Institute of Virology The Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (WIV; ) is a research institute on virology administered by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), which reports to the State Council of the People's Republic of China. The institute ...
** Bat coronavirus RaTG13 * Human uses of bats **
Bat as food Bats are eaten by people in parts of some Asian, African, Pacific Rim countries and cultures, including China, Vietnam, Seychelles, the Philippines, Indonesia, Palau, Thailand, and Guam. Half the megabat (fruit bat) species are hunted for food bu ...


References


External links

* {{COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China Buildings and structures in Wuhan COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China Economy of Wuhan Fish markets Food markets in China Jianghan District Wholesale markets in China