UN: Ban wildlife meat markets due to link with coronavirus

The United Nations biodiversity department has called for a global ban on wildlife meat markets like those in China's Wuhan, the city considered the starting point of the spread of COVID-19.

Elizabeth Maruma Mrema from the UN Convention on Biological Diversity stated that all countries should take the key preventive measure against future pandemics by banning meat markets that sell live or dead animals for human consumption.

China has temporarily banned the operation of meat markets where dead or live cats, dogs, wolf cubs, bats, and various pangolins are usually sold, kept alive in cages, in conditions where they can easily transmit disease to humans. Many scientists are demanding that China make this ban permanent.

The proximity of different animal species in meat markets, as well as the consumption of wildlife meat, enables the transmission of the coronavirus from animals to humans. Early cases of SARS virus infection are linked to contact with wild cats whose meat was sold in meat markets, while some cases of Ebola in Central Africa were believed to originate from the consumption of gorilla meat.

The issue of zoonotic epidemics was addressed in 2016 by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) with evidence that 75% of all new infectious diseases in humans are actually zoonoses, which are closely linked to ecosystem health.

UNEP emphasizes that zoonoses thrive where changes occur in the environment, in animal and human systems, or in the pathogen itself.

During the 20th century, the combination of population growth and reduction of ecosystems and biodiversity culminated in opportunities for pathogens to be transmitted from animals to humans.

On average, a new infectious disease in humans emerges every four months, according to the UNEP report.