Old Habits Die Hard: Wet Markets Back In China!

A report in the Times of India has revealed that wet markets, where animals are butchered in front of shoppers while still alive, have started functioning again in China.

One such wet market in Wuhan which sells bats, seafood and reptiles is the place where experts believe the coronavirus jumped to humans.

Reports suggest that a wet market is operating as usual in the Hubei province but security personnel ensure that no one is able to take photographs of it.

Experts have warned that these markets are a ticking time bomb and have the potential to produce another outbreak. 

SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), which broke out in 2002, is believed to have originated from a wet market in China.

Many countries such as Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Myanmar have exotic animals such as snakes, tortoises, and wild cats in their wet markets. Monkeys, cats, dogs, tigers, pangolin and bats are sold at the “Extreme markets”, reports The Mirror.

Viruses get transferred between animals as traders often use the same knife for slaughtering different animals.

The international community has time and again called for a ban on these wet markets citing that species which don’t usually mix in the world are more prone to catching viruses from one another.

Professor Andrew Cunningham from the Zoological Society of London told the Mirror, “Where live animals of different species are brought together and held in overcrowded and unhygienic conditions, the likelihood of an animal being present that carries a potentially zoonotic virus (which are passed from animal to humans) is increased. The highest priority for the protection of the human health is to ban wet markets.”

This trade is estimated to be valued at £58 billion a year, and reportedly controlled by influential people and industries.

China claims to have shut down 20,000 of these sites.