How wildlife trade is linked to coronavirus

 It was New Year's Eve 2019 when health officials in China admitted they had a problem the health authorities have activated them a serious response level after an outbreak of a new type of viral pneumonia in central China a rapidly growing number of people were developing a dry cough and fever before getting pneumonia and for some it turned fatal doctors have named the disease kovat 19 or coronavirus disease 20 19 indicating that a type of virus is causing illness when they try to trace its origin they found a likely source this food market in Wuhan over the first 41 patients 27 had been here it wasn't conclusive evidence but Chinese officials quickly shut down the market they had seen this happen before at a place just like this the health officials are trying to get a grip on an alarming outbreak of SARS the virus originated in mainland China has spread across the country the disease have been festering for months in southern China in 2002 a corona virus had emerged at a very similar market in southern China it eventually reached 29 countries and killed nearly 800 people now 18 years later this corona virus is in at least 71 countries and has already killed over 3,100 people so what do these markets have to do with the corona virus outbreak and why is it happening a lot of the viruses that make us sick actually originate in animals some of the viruses that cause the flu come from birds and pigs hiv/aids comes from chimpanzees the deadly Ebola virus likely originates in bats and in the case of the 2019 corona virus there's some evidence it went from a bat to a Pangolin before infecting a human while viruses are very good at jumping between species it's rare for a deadly one to make this journey all the way to humans that's because it would need all these hosts to encounter each other at some point that's where the wuhan market comes in it's a wet market a kind of place where live animals are slaughtered and sold for consumption it was not surprised at all . 

I think that it was not surprise to many scientists Peter Lee is a professor and expert on China's animal trade the cages stack about one over another animals at the bottom were are often soaked with all kinds of liquid animal excrement tasks that are what literally could be receiving from the animals that's exactly how a virus can jump from one animal to another if that animal then comes in contact with or is consumed by human the virus could potentially infect them and if the virus then spreads to other humans it causes an outbreak what markets are scattered all over the world but the ones in China are particularly well known because they offer a wide variety of animals including wildlife this is a sample menu reportedly from the market in Wuhan these animals are from all over the world and each one has the potential to carry its own viruses to the market the reason all these animals are in the same market is because of a decision china's government made decades ago back in the 1970s china was falling apart famine had killed more than 36 million people and the communist regime which controlled all food production was failing to feed its more than 9 million people in 1978 on the verge of collapse the regime gave up this control and allowed private farming while large companies increasingly dominated the production of popular foods like pork and poultry some smaller farmers turned to catching and raising wild animals as a way to sustain themselves after their beginning it was mostly peasant household backyard operation of the turtles for example that la-la-la family started to get off the grounds and since it started to feed and sustain people the Chinese government backed it so it was imperative for the government to encourage people to you know to make the liggins through whatever productive activities they can fund them servant even lift yourself out of a poverty no matter what you are doing that's ok but then in 1988 the government made a decision that changed the shape of wildlife trade in China they enacted the wildlife protection law which designated the animals as resources owned by the state and protected people engaged in the utilization of wildlife resources that's one of the most devastating problems of the law because either you designate the wildlife as the natural resource the music is something you can use for human benefits the law also encouraged the domestication and breeding a wild life and with that an industry was born small local farms turned into industrial sized operations. 

For example this bear farm started with just three and eventually grew to more than a thousand bears bigger populations meant greater chances that a sick animal could spread disease farmers were also raising a wide variety of animals which meant more viruses on the farms nonetheless these animals were funneled into the wet markets for profit while this legal wildlife farming industry started booming it simultaneously provided cover for an illegal wildlife industry endangered animals like tigers were on US forces and pangolins were trafficked into China by the early 2000s these markets were teeming with wild animals when the inevitable happened the latest on the deadly SARS virus the worldwide death toll up again today China has reported more than 1400 cases of infection nationwide it is what health officials have feared all along in 2003 the SARS outbreak was traced to a wet market here in southern China scientists found traces of the virus and farmed civet cats Chinese officials quickly shut down the markets and banned wildlife farming but just a few months after the outbreak the Chinese government declared 54 species of wildlife animals including civet cats legal to farming it by 2004 the wildlife farming industry was worth an estimated 100 billion won and it exerted significant influence over the Chinese government type in China's gigantic GDP but the industry has the enormous Lobby capability it's because of this influence that the Chinese government has allowed these markets to grow over the years in 2016 for example the government sanctioned the farming of some endangered species like tigers and pangolins by 2018 the wildlife industry had grown to 148 billion won and had developed clever marketing tactics to keep the markets around the industry has been promoting you know these wildlife animals as in atonic products as you know bodybuilding as sex enhancing and of course as a disease fighting none of the claims can hold water yet these products became popular with an influential portion of China's population .

The majority of the people in China do not eat those people would consume these smaller fibers are the rich and powerful a small minority it's this minority that the Chinese government chose to favor over the safety of the rest of the population is parochial commercial interests of small Nevada eaters uh hi Jackie China's National Church soon after the corona virus outbreak the Chinese government shut down thousands of wet markets and temporarily banned wildlife trade again organizations around the world have been urging China to make the ban permanent Chinese social media in particular has been flooded with petitions to ban it for good this time in response China is reportedly amending the wildlife protection law that encourage wildlife farming decades ago but unless these actions lead to a permanent ban on wildlife farming outbreaks like this one are bound to happen again  for a bunch more information about China's wet markets viruses and wildlife we have an episode on our Netflix show called the next pandemic explained it talks about why a Crone virus could spark the next pandemic and what the world's experts are doing to stop it that's on our Netflix show explained check it out you