China aware of pandemic risk five years before Wuhan Covid outbreak – 'Disease incubator'
Virologist Dr Eddie Holmes has recounted the time he visited Wuhan’s Hunan seafood market during an investigative trip to look for new pathogens that could cause a pandemic in
China. During the 2014 visit, the market was referred to as the kind of place where a virus could “spillover” from animals to humans.
In an interview with the Telegraph, Dr Holmes said: “The Wuhan CDC took us there, and here’s the key bit, because the discussion was: ‘where could a disease emerge?’
“Well, here’s the place – that’s why I went.
“I’ve been to a few of these markets, but this was a big one – it felt like a disease incubator, exactly the sort of place you would expect a disease to emerge”.
The scientist recalled seeing “crates of wildlife stacked on top of each other.”
Experts from the Wuhan Centre of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in China had identified a risk of pandemic at the market linked to the origins of the coronavirus pandemic years before Covid-19 was first registered.
www.express.co.uk