Surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 at the Huanan Seafood Market

Emerging in December 2019, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) eventually became a pandemic and posed a tremendous threat to global public health. However, the origins of SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of COVID-19, remain to be determined. It has been reported that a certain number of the early case clusters had a contact history with the Huanan Seafood Market. Therefore, surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 within the market is of vital importance. Herein, we presented the SARS-CoV-2 detection results of 1380 samples collected from the environment since 1st Jan and animals since 18th Jan within the market in early 2020. By SARS-CoV-2-specific RT-qPCR, 73 environmental samples tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 and three live viruses were successfully isolated. The viruses from the market shared nucleotide identity of 99.99% to 100% with the human isolate HCoV-19/Wuhan/IVDC-HB-01/2019. The A lineage (8782T and 28144C), as the likely ancestral SARS-CoV-2 lineage, was found in an environmental sample. No virus was detected in the animal swabs covering 18 species of animals in the market. The RNA-seq analysis of SARS-CoV-2 positive/negative environmental samples showed the abundance of different vertebrata genera. In summary, this study provided convincing evidence of the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in the Huanan Seafood Market during the early stage of COVID-19 outbreak.