Woman who sold live shrimps in Wuhan food market was first to test positive for coronavirus, claims document

A document from China leaked to media states that a woman selling live shrimps in the Wuhan food market was the first person to test positive for the novel coronavirus.

The woman, identified in the document as 57-year-old Wei, who lives in a rented flat less than 500 meters from the marketplace, developed a fever on December 11.

Wei thought it was the seasonal flu and hence went to a nearby crowded clinic to seek medical advice, and received injections in treatment. The injections, however, did not help cure the woman’s illness, Chinese outlet The Paper reported.

The woman, believed to have recovered from the infection, spoke to the outlet about her ailments, saying: “I felt a bit tired, but not as tired as previous years. Every winter, I always suffer from the flu. So I thought it was the flu.”

The 57-year-old said that she continued to sell seafood in the market despite being sick and eventually went to a bigger hospital for a second opinion. Doctors at The Eleventh Hospital in Wuhan “could not figure out what was wrong with me and gave me pills,” she said. The seafood trader said she took the medicine but did not feel well. She then went back to the small clinic near her house for more injections.

“But then I felt a lot worse and very uncomfortable. I did not have enough strength or energy,” she told the outlet. Wei, eventually, went to one of the city’s biggest hospitals, the Wuhan Union Hospital, for a thorough check on December 16. A doctor there reportedly described her illness as “ruthless” and told her that multiple people from Huanan had already come to the hospital with similar symptoms.

“At that time, there were many people in the hospital,” she added. Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, in January, said that the novel coronavirus had been passed onto humans by wildlife sold as food in the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market where the 57-year-old worked.

According to a statement from Wuhan Municipal Health Commission, Wei was one of the first 27 patients to have been diagnosed with COVID-19 caused by the novel coronavirus. Of them, at least 24 had direct links with Huanan. Authorities at the time had no evidence showing that the virus could be transmitted from humans to humans.

Till now, over three months from the spread of the coronavirus infection, the identity of the first patient, known as “patient zero”, continues to remain a mystery in China.

Although Wei was the first to test positive in the Wuhan market, the first known coronavirus patient is reported to be a bed-bound pensioner in his 70s, who developed symptoms of the virus on December 1.

Classified government records, however, show that the first case of a COVID-19 patient could be traced to November 17, over seven weeks before the first infection was officially announced, according to the South China Morning Post.

The deadly virus has now spread to nearly all the countries across the world with nearly 500,000 cases across the world and more than 20,000 confirmed deaths. There is no officially approved vaccine for the virus yet.