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Detection of a bacteria that caused cholera in a student in the Chinese city of Wuhan and was also found in samples from softshell turtles in the local food market has triggered concern as the city&rsquo;s meat market had unleashed the devastating COVID-19 pandemic that has caused millions of deaths and human suffering on an unprecedented scale wordlwide.</p>
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The food market where samples from softshell turtles tested positive of the pathogen capable of causing cholera has been disinfected, a Reuters report from Beijing cited local authorities as saying.</p>
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While no human cholera case was found among people who came in contact with the softshell turtles, the specific store selling them was ordered to shut down for three days.</p>
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Authorities claimed that the vibrio cholerae O139 strain for the student&#39;s infection, announced on Monday, and the contaminated samples are unrelated.</p>
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However, Wuhan is yet to disclose sources of the bacteria for the student and the samples, or details on source tracing progress.</p>
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Officials are also tracking unspecified products of the same batch as the softshell turtles that have been shipped elsewhere, said the disease control authority in Wuhan&#39;s Hongshan district.</p>
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Despite assurances, the fear about another disease outbreak still made this issue among the top trending topics on China&#39;s Twitter-equivalent&nbsp; microblog Weibo on Friday, with 200 million reads.</p>
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The earliest COVID-19 infections in late 2019 were initially linked to a local market in Wuhan that also sold seafood and fish products. The origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 remains a mystery and a major source of tension between China and the United States.</p>
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&quot;Take the lesson of COVID, and hurry up in source tracing to secure evidence!!!&quot; wrote a Weibo user.</p>
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Reports of cholera, an acute watery diarrhoea disease potentially fatal if left without prompt treatment and usually linked to contaminated food or water , are rare in mainland China, with five cases in 2021 and 11 in 2020 but no deaths.</p>
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Wuhan, with a population of more than 12 million, said on Monday the case of cholera in a local university student did not cause further infections.</p>
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