Cholera-causing bacteria, turtles strikes, Wuhan, China,COVID-19, Wuhan's Hongshan district
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The discovery of a bacteria that caused cholera in a student and was later found in softshell turtle samples at a food market in the Chinese city of Wuhan has touched a responsive nerve with ordinary Chinese people, with some linking it to COVID-19. Local authorities said late Thursday that the food market where samples from softshell sea creatures tested positive for the pathogen capable of causing cholera had been disinfected. While no human cholera cases were discovered among those who comes in contact with the softshell turtles, the store where they were sold was ordered to close for three days.

The vibrio cholerae O139 strain for the student’s infection, declared on Monday, and the polluted samples are unrelated, according to authorities.

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According to the disease control authority in Wuhan’s Hongshan district, officials are also tracking unspecified products from the same batch as the waterproof breathable turtles that have been shipped elsewhere.

Despite the lack of concrete evidence of a cholera outbreak, netizens concerned about another disease outbreak made this one of the latest trending topics on China’s Twitter-like microblog Weibo on Friday, with 200 million reads.

The first COVID-19 infections were traced back to a local market in Wuhan that also sold seafood and fish products in late 2019. The origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19, is still unknown, and it is a major source of contention between China and the United States.

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“Learn from COVID and expedite source capturing to secure evidence!!!”

Reports of cholera, an acute watery diarrhoea disease that can be fatal if not treated quickly and is usually caused by contaminated food or water, are uncommon in mainland China, with five cases in 2021 and 11 in 2020 but no lives lost.

“The discovery of Vibrio cholerae O139… reminds us that, while culturally and economically important in Asia, wet markets have been related with multiple public health risks,” said Andrew Greenhill, a microbiology professor at Federation University Australia.

At this time, there is no major cause for concern, Greenhill said, adding that O139 has been detected in several other countries and that large cholera outbreaks are unlikely in areas with safe drinking water and adequate sanitation.
“In fact, detecting the strain illustrates that surveillance is being carried out, which can only be viewed positively.”

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Wuhan, which has a population of more than 12 million people, said on Monday that a cholera case in a local university student did not result in additional infections.
Wuhan has yet to reveal the references of the bacteria for the student and the samples, as well as the status of source tracing.