Live animal markets ‘are a recipe for disaster’ in fight against new diseases
Public health experts have warned that China’s live animal markets are a perfect breeding ground for emerging infectious diseases, with one academic branding them a ‘‘recipe for disaster’’.
The source of the novel coronavirus, a new pneumonia-type illness that has infected nearly 600 people in China and killed 17, was a seafood market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.
The animal source of the outbreak has not been identified but two recent research papers have pointed to bats and snakes as the possible culprits.
The seafood market, now shut down, was home to stalls trading in many animals, including snakes, marmots and poultry. Purchasing food from these so-called ‘‘wet’’ markets is popular in China as consumers like to buy their meat ‘‘warm’’ – that is, recently slaughtered.
Jonathan Ball, professor of molecular virology at the University of Nottingham, said it was poor practice to keep many different species of animals in ‘‘cramped conditions and in close proximity, and then also to add humans into the mix’’.
‘‘If you have a viral-infected animal introduced into that, they can first pass that virus among animals of their own species and amplify that infection.
‘‘Secondly, they can pass it to other species which may act as an intermediary host and pass it more easily to humans.
‘‘So live animals, lots of species and cramped conditions – it’s a recipe for disaster,’’ he said.
China has been the source of many ‘‘zoonotic’’ disease outbreaks in recent years – diseases that jump from animals to humans. The severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak of 2002 to 2003 – a coronavirus closest genetically to this new strain – originated in civet cats, a delicacy in parts of China. Dr Gordon Woo, a risk management specialist, said that eating wild animals was common in China and other parts of Asia.
‘‘There is no regulation – the only way to control this is to ban the selling of wild animals.
‘‘That won’t happen because there are livelihoods at stake. What is needed is very good disease surveillance in these markets so when a problem arises the authorities are quick to pounce on it,’’ he said.
Dr Michael Osterholm, director of the Centre for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said that live animal markets were a problem throughout Asia.
‘‘I’ve been in a market in Bangkok which was almost a mile by a mile inside – you can find almost any animal imaginable. I have a picture where there are cages full of ferrets on top of them chickens. From an influenza standpoint, birds and animals together is not good,’’ he said.