Deadly Virus Finds a Breeding Ground in China’s Food Markets
- Wet markets where live animals are sold linked to new illness
- China has tried to clamp down since SARS but challenges remain
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Leaning over a metal cage stuffed with live hens in Shanghai, Ran looked for just the right specimen for her chicken soup. The 60-year-old was shopping at one of China’s wet markets, where sales of freshly slaughtered, unpackaged meat have become the focus of an investigation into an outbreak of a potentially deadly lung virus.
Four people have died and more than 200 have been infected, including fifteen medical professionals. The new virus is a cousin of the cause of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, which killed almost 800 people 17 years ago.