Wuhan shrimp seller may be coronavirus 'patient zero' and says bug 'came from toilet'

A shrimp seller at the live animal food market believed to be at the centre of the coronavirus pandemic has been identified as one of the first victims of the virus.

The 57-year-old woman, named by Wall Street Journal as Wei Guixian, is believed to be "patient zero" - the first person to test positive for Covid-19.

Wei was selling shrimp at Huanan Seafood Market in the central city of Wuhan when she developed what she thought was a cold on December 10, Chinese outlet The Paper report.

So she walked to a small local clinic for treatment and then went back to work which may have spread the disease which has so far killed one person in Kenya.

She told The Paper: “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.”

She said the following day she visited a clinic where she given an injection before seeking medical at the Eleventh Hospital in Wuhan because she was still feeling unwell.

She was given pills but was feeing lethargic so she visited Wuhan Union Hospital — one of the city’s biggest — to get checked out on December 16.

Wei said she was told by a doctor that her illness was “ruthless” and that several other people from Huanan Seafood Market had visited the hospital with similar symptoms.

Wei was quarantined at the end of December when doctors made the link between the emerging bug and the seafood market, the Chinese outlet reports.

She recovered in January and said she thinks she contracted coronavirus   from a toilet in the market she shared with meat sellers and others.

A statement released by Wuhan Municipal Health Commission confirmed that Wei was among the first 27 patients to test positive for Covid-19 and one of 24 cases with direct links to the market.

Wei, who has since recovered and left the hospital in January, said she thinks she contracted the infection from a market toilet in the market she shared with meat sellers and others.

The Paper reports that the sellers who worked on either side of Wei, along with one of her daughters, a niece and the niece’s husband, also caught the killer bug.

Wei added that fewer people would have died if the government had "acted sooner".

Wei may have been “patient zero” at the market but she may not have been the first person to have contracted coronavirus in China.

A study by Chinese researchers published in the Lancet medical journal, claims the first person to be diagnosed with Covid-19 was identified on December 1 and they had no contact with the market.

Wu Wenjuan, a senior doctor at Jinyintan Hospital in Wuhan and one of the authors of the study, told the BBC Chinese Service that the first person was an elderly man who suffered from Alzheimer's disease.

She said: "He (the patient) lived four or five buses from the seafood market, and because he was sick he basically didn't go out.".

Dr Wenjuan added that several people showed signs of having Covid-19 days later but they also had no links to the market.

To date China has has 81,340 coronavirus cases and 3,292 deaths.