‘Eating less meat could help avoid a future pandemic’

PEOPLE should cut down on eating meat to help avoid future pandemics, experts have said.

An international team of 25 wildlife and veterinary experts including the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and Cambridge University said there needed to be widespread changes to the way humans interact with wildlife and livestock to prevent diseases leaping between species.

The experts say banning wet markets, or the trade or exotic animals, will not be enough to prevent a future pandemic and have set out 161 changes that could help.

Measures include preventing the mixing of animals at market, moving towards more plant-based foods to reduce the demand for animals, and encouraging cavers or potholers to wear masks and coveralls to prevent interaction with bats.

Owners of farms and smallholdings should also take better steps to keep animals away from people, and domesticated species apart from wild species.

“Wild animals aren’t the problem – they don’t cause disease emergence. People do,” said Prof Andrew Cunningham,

a co-author of the study and deputy director of science at the ZSL.

Co-author Chinedu Ugwu, a veterinarian and scientist from the Africa Centre of Excellence for the Genomics of Infectious Disease in Nigeria, added: “At the root of the problem is human behaviour, so changing this provides the solution.”

Prof William Sutherland, of the University of Cambridge’s department of

‘At the root of the problem is human behaviour, so changing this provides the solution’

zoology, said the next pandemic may emerge in a different way and steps should be taken now to limit contact between humans and wild animals.

“We need to be acting on a wider scale to reduce the risk,” he added.

The group also called for a ban on the international transport of live wild animals, except for conservation and scientific programmes. And it proposed the introduction of laws against eating raw animals and the promotion of synthetic versions of animal products, such as fake fur.

People should also be discouraged from keeping exotic pets, it said.