COVID-Like Global Pandemic Could Start From Meat Supply In US: Study

New York: The world is just about settling down to life post COVID-19.

The last thing we want to hear now is the possibility of another pandemic jolting us.

However, a recent study has found that the next global pandemic could start from the United States.

Americans refuse to believe think that it could happen in their land, but researchers of Harvard Law School and New York University have claimed that regulations in the US are so loose that a virus could easily jump from animals to people, sparking a deadly outbreak.

“There really is this false sense of security and unfounded belief that zoonotic disease is something that happens elsewhere. In fact, I think we’re more vulnerable than ever in many ways,” said Ann Linder, one of the report’s lead authors.

The areas of vulnerability include commercial farms, where millions of livestock come into close contact with each other and their handlers, wild animal trade where animals are imported without enough health checks and fur trade in which minks and other animals are bred, the report highlighted.

“Through globalisation, we’ve erased seas and mountains and other natural boundaries of disease,” Linder stated, adding, “We’re mixing animals and pathogens across different continents and circulating at a dizzying and ever-increasing pace,”

The US imports about 220 million live wild animals every year for pets and other purposes.

“If someone wants to bring a dog or cat into the country, there’s a process, but if I’m a wildlife importer and I want to bring in 100 wild mammals from South America, I can do that with very little regulation of any kind,” Linder said.

According to Delcianna Winders, associate professor of law and director of Animal Law and Policy Institute at Vermont Law and Graduate School, workers on pig and poultry farms are particularly vulnerable because of lack of regulations protecting them.

“There is virtually no regulation of on-farm raising of animals. There’s limited regulation of the slaughterhouse but it is extremely inadequate and it’s getting worse. Right now, the federal government is deregulating slaughter, rather than increasing oversight,” Delcianna said.

Responding to the new study, National Chicken Council senior vice-president of scientific and regulatory affairs Ashley Peterson said, “According the CDC, the likelihood of spreading an avian disease to a human in the United States is extremely rare.”