{"id":6587,"date":"2020-03-23T14:39:35","date_gmt":"2020-03-23T14:39:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.naturepl.com\/blog\/?p=6587"},"modified":"2020-04-02T11:43:08","modified_gmt":"2020-04-02T11:43:08","slug":"animal-trade-in-the-time-of-coronavirus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.naturepl.com\/blog\/2020\/03\/23\/animal-trade-in-the-time-of-coronavirus\/","title":{"rendered":"Animal Trade in the time of Coronavirus"},"content":{"rendered":"

The world is in the grip of a pandemic, and you\u2019re probably reading this from home right now. Where did coronavirus come from, and what\u2019s it got to do with the trade in wild animals?<\/em><\/h1>\n

The rise of COVID-19<\/u><\/h2>\n

For many, it seemed as though the coronavirus pandemic sprung up out of nowhere. But it didn\u2019t just arise spontaneously. It was transferred from an animal to a human host. Such animal-borne diseases \u2013 called zoonoses \u2013 are either traced back to wild animals (e.g. AIDS, Ebola and Marburg virus) or to farmed livestock (e.g. BSE, Nipah virus and swine flu).<\/p>\n

According to the Chinese government, the jump of COVID-19 took place in a \u2018wet market\u2019 in the city of Wuhan. Wet markets are typically open-air sites selling fresh meat and seafood (often butchered and trimmed on-site) as well as other produce. They exist throughout China and other parts of the world. And they\u2019ve given rise to novel human diseases before. In 2003, the emergence of SARS \u2013 a respiratory disease that affected 26 countries and resulted in more than 8000 cases \u2013 was traced to the same kind of market that is thought to have sparked the COVID-19 outbreak. And in 1997, the rise of bird flu in Hong Kong was blamed squarely on wet poultry markets.<\/p>\n

Wet markets in China have evolved into outlets not just for traditional livestock, but for a whole slew of wild animals as well \u2013 sometimes sold dead, sometimes alive. Consequently, as well as blood and entrails, these environments contain animal waste such as faeces and urine, helping to create the unsanitary conditions in which diseases thrive.<\/p>\n\"Six<\/a>\n