Wuhan coronavirus: The story of a Chinese megacity besieged by the government and a deadly disease
Seventeen years since the outbreak of SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), China has faced yet another serious healthcare challenge, thanks to the outbreak of a new coronavirus in the city of Wuhan in Hubei Province. And according to public health experts, the danger was big once the outbreak was reported since the city in Central China is a highly populated one.
Adrian Hyzler, chief medical officer at Healix International which offers risk-management solutions, was quoted by Business Insider as saying: “This has always been waiting to happen. Wuhan is such a big city. It’s 11 million people.” He also said people who have illnesses are likely to die first when affected.
But what made Wuhan vulnerable to the supervirus (officially called 2019-nCoV) that has killed 25 people and left over 830 infected? At least eight other countries, including the US, have seen the virus spreading to them as scientists confirmed that it can pass from human to human.
A densely populated city
Wuhan is more than twice the size of Shanghai and eight times the size of Hong Kong while its population is 2.6 million more than that of New York. It is the most densely populated city in central China and it is one of the major reasons why Wuhan finds itself more vulnerable to the spread of any infectious disease.
A big transportation hub
The fact that Wuhan is also a major transportation hub that serves millions of people through railways, airways and waterways also adds to its risk factor. By rail, Wuhan connects highly populated cities like Shanghai and Guangzhou while its Tianhe International Airport serves over 20 million passengers annually. It is also a port city on the Yangtze River and handles over 1.5 million containers annually. The authorities have at once quarantined the city by shutting down transportation by roads, railways, waterways and air. The entire residential population has been asked to not leave the city, barring special circumstances. The timing of the outbreak of the disease has also left the authorities worried since several millions are likely to travel to and within China for the Lunar Year celebrations that begin Saturday and continue till February 8.
A dangerous wet market
The third factor that saw Wuhan getting affected is its wet markets where people and animals, live and dead, come into close contact and it becomes easier for the virus to change hosts. The supervirus in Wuhan is suspected to have originated from the Huanan Seafood Market where it could have gone into humans from snakes. It is though not clear yet how the virus could adapt to hot-blooded hosts from cold-blooded ones and only laboratory experiments could determine it. The market was shut down early in January to counter the spread. The first person to die from the virus was a 61-year-old and according to Bloomberg, he was a regular shopper at the Huanan market. Earlier diseases like SARS and H7N9 and H5N9 bird flus also originated in the Huanan wet markets.
Only lab dealing with viruses is in Wuhan
Speaking about the laboratory, scientists warned in 2017 that a SARS-like virus could escape a laboratory that was set up in Wuhan that very year to study dangerous pathogens, including SARS and Ebola viruses. In fact, the Nature said in an article in February 2017 that the SARS virus had ‘escaped’ multiple times from a laboratory in Beijing and scientists fear that China’s close culture could suppress the reality over virus outbreaks and stop effective exchange of information.
The lab in Wuhan which is the only one to deal with the coronavirus -- Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory -- is located around 20 miles from the Huanan market and while some believe that it is a coincidence, the scientific community is convinced that the deadly virus mutated through and affected people through animal-human contact in the seafood hub.