China might be close to detecting the source of the novel coronavirus.
On Monday, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported that a large quantity of wild animals on sale at a seafood market in the city of Wuhan tested positive for the virus.
Experts from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said the same type of virus gathered from the samples could be possibly be the source of the epidemic.
RELATED NEWS: HIV anti-drugs used as treatment plan for novel coronavirus in China
Thirty-three of the 585 samples collected from the 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.
Thirty-one of the 33 positive samples were collected from the western zone of the market, where booths of wildlife trading concentrated.
READ MORE: China suspends customs ops in Wuhan as death toll from Wuhan virus jumps to 80, infects 2700
The result suggests that the novel coronavirus outbreak is highly relevant to the trading of the wild animals, experts said.
Experts of the institute took the samples on Jan. 1 and Jan. 12 on instruction of the Chinese CDC.
