Wuhan virus: Spotlight on how close wild animals and humans are in China's markets

A photo taken on Jan 15, 2020, showing a butcher selling yak meat at a market in Beijing. PHOTO: AFP
A view of the exterior of the closed Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan on Jan 20, 2020, where the first cases of the mysterious pneumonia were detected. PHOTO: EPA-EFE
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SINGAPORE - What immediately hits a visitor to China's wild animal markets is the smell. It is an odour so overwhelmingly putrid that one would leave at once if one didn't have any real business to be there.

Chickens, ducks, geese, swans, pigs, goats and sheep are commonplace and kept in separate pens.

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