Name: Coronaviruses extremely widespread in wildlife trade: study
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Coronaviruses extremely widespread in wildlife trade: study

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Coronaviruses extremely widespread in wildlife trade: studyWe’re sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. We’re working to restore it. Please try again later.DismisscloseAdvertisementBy Log in, or to save articles for later.Normal text sizeLarger text sizeVery large text sizeAdvertisementCoronaviruses are extremely widespread in wild animals bred for food in Vietnam, with the wildlife supply chain quickly spreading those viruses to uninfected animals, preliminary research shows.The study did not find the specific strain of coronavirus that causes COVID-19, but it illustrates how efficiently the $300 billion global wildlife trade amplifies animal viruses and brings them into contact with humans – the exact process most scientists suspect is behind the emergence of COVID-19 at a wet market in Wuhan.“These results are pretty much what all of us in this business expect,” said Professor Hamish McCallum, a wildlife disease ecologist at Griffith University's Environmental Futures Research Institute.“If you wanted a way to transfer viruses between species and amplify them, you couldn’t find a better way to do it than wildlife trading.”Humans are affected by a few hundred viruses; scientists there may be about 1.67 million viruses circulating in mammals and waterfowl.Some of those viruses – they don’t entirely know which – can jump from animal to human. Coronaviruses appear particularly capable of making the leap, with strains of the virus responsible for SARS, MERS and COVID-19.The climate crisis and habitat destruction are pushing animals and humans closer together.When different wild animals are kept in close quarters, viruses can jump between animals, swap genes and then potentially jump into humans.AdvertisementThe study, done between 2012 and 2014 but only uploaded to medRxiv on June 10, shows exactly how that can happen.The researchers tracked the Vietnamese rat trade – about 3400 tonnes of live rat were processed annually for consumption at the time – at 70 sites, including farms, markets and restaurants.Vietnam has a significant wildlife farming industry, which rears rodents, boar, snakes, deer and crocodiles for sale to restaurants, .They also looked at bats living in "guano farms", structures often set up near towns so people can harvest the bats' manure as fertiliser.Among 1506 bats and rats tested, a third of the animals tested positive for bird and bat coronaviruses. Every single rodent market and nearly all bat farms had animals with the viruses.More troubling, the authors noted, was that the percentage of animals with coronaviruses increased as they tracked the supply chain from farm to plate.That made sense, said Professor McCallum. Cramming the animals together through the journey from farm to plate allowed the viruses to spread from creature to creature. Stress and lack of food probably increased the animals’ shedding of virus.The study was co-authored by Australian Wildlife Health Centre senior vet Leanne Wicker."Wildlife farming has been encouraged in Vietnam and other wildlife consuming nations in Asia. This work confirmed the risk these farms pose for animal and public health," she said."The conditions on wildlife farms are often really concerning, with lack of knowledge of the husbandry/health and nutrition needs of the wild species being farmed contributing to high rates of morbidity and mortality. Put simply, they are appalling."Dr Wicker emphasised that wet markets alone were not the problem - it was the entire wildlife supply chain, from legal farming - and illegal hunting - right through the consumption.The study has not yet been through rigorous peer review or published in an academic journal, meaning its findings need to be treated with caution.The research was funded by PREDICT – a US government-funded program designed to predict the next pandemic.The program was defunded just before COVID-19 emerged.Australia has been calling for a on wildlife markets because they are potential pandemic sources. However, Professor McCallum called this approach potentially counterproductive.“If you drive wildlife markets underground you’ll lose any ability to regulate them. And there is some neo-colonialism going on here – the Sydney fish market is a wet market. What is necessary is that wildlife markets need to be better managed.”Get our Coronavirus Update newsletter for the day's crucial developments at a glance, the numbers you need to know and what our readers are saying. Sign up to The Sydney Morning Herald's newsletter and The Age's .Log in, or to save articles for later. is The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald's national science reporter.Advertisement

Coronaviruses extremely widespread in wildlife trade: studyWe’re sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. We’re working to restore it. Please try again later.DismisscloseAdvertisementBy Log in, or to save articles for later.Normal text sizeLarger text sizeVery large text sizeAdvertisementCoronaviruses are extremely widespread in wild animals bred for food in Vietnam, with the wildlife supply chain quickly spreading those viruses to uninfected animals, preliminary research shows.The study did not find the specific strain of coronavirus that causes COVID-19, but it illustrates how...

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Liam Mannix

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Coronaviruses extremely widespread in wildlife trade: study

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