Scientists suggest that the new epidemic may have been caused by the culinary preferences of the Chinese
The aim of this measure is to eradicate the population's habit of eating wild animal meat in the interests of public health. According to scientists, this is exactly how the 2019-nCoV coronavirus epidemic began. It is believed that its first carrier was a bat.
As Vinegret.cz notes, from the very beginning of the new type of coronavirus epidemic, unresolved problems in the trade of wild animals and the risk they pose to public safety have attracted great public attention.
In 2002-2003, after the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, which killed hundreds of people and was also linked to the consumption of wild animals, China already introduced similar bans, but they were temporary. And the existing law on nature protection is full of loopholes that allowed poachers to traffic wild and rare animals with impunity – as exotic food or for use in traditional medicines whose effectiveness is not scientifically proven.
China is the only major world power that allows the consumption of many endangered animal species.
As reported by BBC, China had previously introduced a temporary ban on markets selling wild animals. And now the authorities have taken another step by announcing at the party level a now permanent ban. The epicenter of the spread of the 2019-nCoV coronavirus, which causes the disease Covid-19, is considered to be the wild game market in Wuhan, and the intermediate link is pangolins, through which the virus could have been transmitted to humans.
The new law, which implies a "complete ban on illegal trade in wild animals with the aim of eradicating the harmful habit of eating wild animals, as well as protecting health and ensuring public safety," prohibits any trade and consumption of all terrestrial species of wild animals.
However, as follows from a study conducted by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), this law does not affect the trade in fur, medicines based on wild animals, nor their breeding or capture for scientific purposes. "This creates potential loopholes in the law that poachers could use to trade wild animals falling under non-food exceptions," the WCS statement said.
According to WCS chief veterinarian Christian Walzer, the new ban is an important step in the right direction, as it aims to eradicate the very cause of the Covid-19 outbreak. "However, there is an active trade in wild animals that is not related to their consumption as food," the specialist recalls. For example, in the case of pangolins, their scales are used by the ton in folk medicine. And although the authorities control this trade, there is always room for a black market.
As Daniel Challender of the University of Oxford, who has studied the pangolin trade, points out, the new ban clearly demonstrates that China "intends to end the trade in pangolin meat." At the same time, the researcher emphasizes that breeding pangolins for scientific purposes is not prohibited by law.