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As of Thursday, August 14, 2003
China Lifts Wild-Animal Ban Despite Risk of Link to SARS
By MATT POTTINGER and BEN DOLVEN
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB106081306319527100,00.html?mod=todays%255Fus%255Fpageone%255Fhs


Civet cats will soon be back in China's markets -- along with raccoon dogs, silver foxes and dozens of other exotic species -- despite evidence that wild-animal markets may have been the source of the SARS epidemic.

China's State Forestry Administration issued a national circular listing 54 exotic species permitted for sale in China as food or pets as long as the animals are farm raised, not caught in the wild. A ban on the trade and consumption of such creatures was imposed in late April amid mounting evidence that live-animal markets may have served as epicenters for severe acute respiratory syndrome, which began afflicting people in China's southern Guangdong province at least as early as last November.

A forestry administration spokesman said the circular lifting the ban, which was sent out Tuesday, was designed to "standardize and support the development of the industry of domesticating and breeding wild animals." Other Chinese officials said the move resulted from difficulty enforcing the prohibition.

The move is an example of how cultural and economic realities can collide with public-health objectives in dealing with the epidemic, which infected about 8,500 people, killing more than 800 of them, in 32 countries and territories before mysteriously fading away last month.

Several teams of researchers are combing the country, trying to track down the origins of the virus. The World Health Organization says there haven't been any major breakthroughs yet, but some research points to the squirrelly masked palm civet as a possible, if inconsistent, host for the virus that causes the disease. Until that work is done, many scientists worry that letting wild animals back into the markets could help pave the way for a recurrence of SARS.

"The foundation for the re-establishment of the wild-animal market should be a proper risk assessment, which should be based on the protection of public health," said Klaus Stohr, a World Health Organization official who coordinated anti-SARS efforts globally during the epidemic. "Such a risk assessment has not been conducted, and we are therefore concerned," Dr. Stohr added.

Scientists haven't proved a link between the disease and the civet cat, a tree-dwelling omnivore with a body resembling a cat's and the face of a weasel. But studies by two research teams have, in a small number of the animals, isolated viruses nearly identical to the one that causes SARS. The first study was in May, when scientists at the University of Hong Kong and the Shenzhen Center for Disease Control and Prevention collected samples from animals on sale at a Shenzhen market in the country's south and isolated viruses from several civets and a raccoon dog. Genetic sequences were completed for some of the samples, showing the virus to be 99.8% identical to the one that causes SARS in humans. Now, a second group of researchers, at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in central China, isolated the virus in at least two civets out of more than 40 from a breeding farm in Hubei province, according to two scientists familiar with the findings.

Other studies have suggested a link between SARS and the animal markets. Studies of blood samples collected by an interagency task force in May found that 13% of 508 people working in three wild-animal markets in Guangdong had antibodies to the SARS coronavirus. That suggested they had exposure to the virus even though most never developed full-blown cases of SARS. A similar study at a Shenzhen market found an even higher prevalence of antibodies among workers. Many of the first known SARS cases were chefs and others who worked around wild animals.

But since the ban was imposed on wild-animal sales, thousands of farmers, animal dealers, stall keepers and restaurant workers -- many of whom were already dangling from lower rungs of China's economy -- have been forced out of work. Some staged public protests, while others built up a black market to satiate southern Chinese people's deeply rooted appetite for wild cuisine.

In Shanghai's Fengxian district, where over one million partridges, mallards and pheasants were slaughtered in June as part of the wildlife crackdown, farmers protested last month to the city government, asking to be allowed to return to their livelihoods. They are receiving support from agricultural officials, who for years have encouraged farmers to move from cheap crops to high-value areas including wild-animal breeding. "Should we stop eating beef just because of the existence of mad-cow disease?" asked a forestry-administration official.

China's appetite for exotic animals remains strong, particularly among adventurous eaters in the south. The wild-animal dishes on a single restaurant menu can run in the dozens in some regions. One Shenzhen eatery, for instance, serves everything from deep-fried baby pigeons to soy-braised civet steamed with ginger. The danger isn't thought to lie in animals once they have been prepared; experts believe the virus is more likely to be spread when they are being handled or slaughtered.

The taste for such creatures has been spreading along with the general economic liberalization that began a quarter-century ago. Though the lingering effect of the SARS outbreak trimmed foreign investment for the first seven months of the year, data released Wednesday showed consumer prices and exports showing healthy gains for July.

Responses from the Ministry of Health suggest disease prevention was given low priority in the decision to lift the wild-animal ban. Deng Haihua, spokesman for the Ministry of Health, said the matter was out of its hands. He said he was also unaware of the latest evidence linking SARS to civets, since efforts to find the animal origin of SARS were being coordinated by the Ministry of Science and Technology. "We do not have any scientific evidence to support or oppose the decision by the forestry administration," he said. "The public has the freedom to choose what to eat or not eat. The Ministry of Health is not entitled" to interfere.

The debate in Guangdong, the southern province that was ground zero of the epidemic, indicates how Chinese economic realities got the upper hand on public-health policy. Executing the April ban proved nearly impossible from the start. Even after the discovery of the virus in the Shenzhen civets, wild game was sold openly; bribes ensured that vendors were alerted to "surprise" inspections ahead of time. In late May, Guangdong authorities began to enforce the ban in earnest, launching a campaign dubbed "Operation Green Sword." They confiscated 30,335 wild critters in nearly 1,000 markets and nearly 7,000 hotels and restaurants, and inspected trucks and vans used for trafficking wildlife. But the costs proved unbearable for many caught in the crossfire.

The debate reached a crescendo in July, when Guangdong province's parliament hosted a rare televised hearing on the matter. Testimonies traded back and forth between environmentalists, who urged a permanent ban on the wild-animal trade, and businessmen and farmers, who complained of economic hardship and said a full ban was unworkable. In the end, the parliament passed a compromise law, which recommended that "people should give up their habit of eating wild animals," but refrained from blocking the practice outright.

"The final vote just reflects the viewpoints of the public," Wang Xudong, a senior lawmaker told a Chinese newspaper after the vote. Now that the central government has approved the sale of animals, officials at the Guangdong branch of the forestry administration say they expect exotic species to begin filling the markets again.

To see the rest of the article you need to be a subscriber of the Wall Street Journal. You can find the article at http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB106081306319527100,00.html?mod=todays%255Fus%255Fpageone%255Fhs

Write to Matt Pottinger at [email protected] and Ben Dolven at [email protected]

Updated August 14, 2003




Other Bushmeat-related Articles:
The Expanding African Bush Meat Trade
Monkey Brains on the Menu
Massive Gorilla die-off in Africa -- Ebola Suspected





China lifts ban on animals linked to SARS
The ban, which involved 54 types of wildlife, lasted for five months
By ANDRE PICARD
PUBLIC HEALTH REPORTER
Friday, August 15, 2003 - Page A12
http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20030815/USARS/TPHealth/


China is lifting its five-month-old ban on the sale and consumption of exotic animals -- including civet cats, an animal believed to be a source of the SARS outbreak.

The Chinese Forestry Administration announced yesterday that it was lifting the prohibition on trade in 54 types of wildlife.

The decision came despite warnings by some scientists that SARS could be widespread and re-emerge during the winter - when respiratory illnesses tend to spread.

Medical investigators believe that the coronavirus which causes severe acute respiratory syndrome jumped from animals to humans somewhere in southern China.

The first known cases cropped up last November in Guangdong province, among butchers who work slaughtering exotic animals.

Almost 8,500 people worldwide have been infected by SARS, and at least 815 have died.

At the height of the SARS outbreak, a report that the virus was discovered in civet cats was heavily reported.

Since then, however, scientists have determined that many species of animals carry the coronavirus, so it is not clear if the animal was truly the source of the disease.

Civet cats are considered a delicacy in some parts of China.

They are not actually cats but a tree-dwelling omnivore with a body resembling a cat's and the face of a weasel.

It is just one of the dozens of types of exotic animals that are sold in Chinese markets.

In its terse release yesterday, the forestry administration said the decision to lift the ban was designed to "standardize and support the development of the industry of domesticating and breading wild animals."

But, more likely, the change came about because the prohibition was taking a harsh economic toll, and difficult to enforce.

Thousands of workers in farms, slaughterhouses, markets and restaurants were out of work, causing widespread resentment.

There were large protests by workers, and a burgeoning black market sprung up to satisfy the deeply rooted appetite for wild cuisine. The World Health Organization expressed concern about the move, saying adequate research has not yet been conducted.

"The foundation for the re-establishment of the wild-animal market should be a proper risk assessment, which should be based on the protection of public health," said Klaus Stohr, a WHO official who co-ordinates anti-SARS efforts. "Such an assessment has not been conducted and we are therefore concerned."

Perhaps in a bid to placate international worries, Chinese officials announced yesterday that they were undertaking a large-scale study to determine the link between SARS and animals.

A team of 14 researchers was dispatched to Guangdong province. Meanwhile, a study published in today's edition of the medical journal The Lancet suggests that one of the most infamous incidents during the SARS outbreak -- the infection of more than 300 people in a single Hong Kong apartment block -- may have been caused by rats.

Previously, scientists had said that a single man infected with SARS, a "super-spreader" was responsible for the large outbreak.But Stephen Ng, an epidemiologist in New York, said it is improbably that one man could have spread the disease so widely in Amoy Gardens.

Rather, he suggests that rats likely carried SARS throughout the building.




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