Will next virus start here?

Fears ongoing wet market sales will spawn new deadly diseases

- NADA FARHOUD

THE filthy conditions in Asia’s wildlife markets, where live animals are flogged as exotic pets or butchered for food, are a “ticking time bomb” for new deadly pandemics, experts say.

Coronavirus is thought to have jumped from animals to humans at a “wet” market in Wuhan, China.

A pangolin infected by bats is widely believed to be the source of the outbreak.

Previous killer diseases SARS and bird flu were traced to similar sites and China has now banned the sale and consumption of wildlife to “safeguard public health and ecological security”, under orders from President Xi Jinping.

Yet multiple species are still being crammed together, slaughtered and sold in filthy conditions, contaminated with blood and faeces, at countless markets in other Asian countries.

Major wildlife trafficking supply chains that originate in Africa and Latin America supply Burma, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.

And body parts are still being hawked in many countries by traders, most of whom use a single knife to butcher all of their animals.

While the trade worth up to the €64billion a year continues, conservationists warn it is just a matter of time before the emergence of another killer disease.

Urging all countries to follow China’s lead to announce a blanket ban, Prof Andrew Cunningham, of the Zoological Society of London, said ending wet markets was “the highest priority for protection of human health”.

And Steve Galster founder of Freeland, a Bangkok-based anti-trafficking group warned: “ Wuhan is a major wake-up call – mother nature’s revenge.