Thai blogger facing jail after eating virus-riddled bat soup
A THAI video blogger has been arrested after filming herself eating a bowl of bat soup, leading to concern from health experts.
The footage showed Phonchanok Srisunaklua, a teacher who also runs a Youtube channel called Gin Zap Bep Nua Nua, which translates as “Eat Spicy and Delicious”, eating a murky brown soup.
Floating in the liquid alongside cherry tomatoes are several lesser Asiatic yellow bats, a protected species which Ms Srisunaklua bought from a market near the Laos border in northern Thailand.
Bats infected with the closest relative to Sars-cov-2, which prompted the Covid-19 pandemic, are found in the same region.
During the video, posted earlier this week, Ms Srisunaklua holds a bat up to the camera, pointing to the creature’s teeth. Moments later you hear the crunch as she bites down on its “soft bones”.
The now-deleted footage led to outrage. “You’ll be damned if you start a pandemic,” warned one viewer.
“You should not mess with bats,” Prof Teerawat Hemajuta, of Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, told The Thaiger news website, as he warned that the mammals contain pathogens which could prove deadly for humans.
Researchers have estimated that each year 400,000 people across south-east Asia and southern China are infected by coronaviruses carried by bats which could carry up to 10,000 pathogens capable of infecting humans.
Experts say Covid-19 almost certainly originated in bats and there have been efforts to crack down on some wet markets in the wake of the pandemic.
Last year, scientists narrowed in on the virus’s closest known relative in bat caves in Laos.
“I was shocked to see [the bat] in the clip,” said Pattaraphon Manee-on, head of the wildlife health management group at Thailand’s department of national parks, wildlife and plant conservation. “The incident should not happen in Thailand and around the world, it is very risky behaviour, especially as bats have a lot of pathogens.”
Ms Srisunaklua, who has since apologised, said she would not eat the mammals again. She was arrested for violating wildlife conservation laws and faces up to five years in prison or a 500,000 baht (almost £12,000) fine.