Best way to prevent another Covid-19? Ban Animal Markets!
The COVID-19 outbreak is believed to have originated in a Chinese "wet market" that sold sea animals, live birds, and exotic animals for human consumption.
Much like swine flu, bird flu and SARS (which was also caused by a coronavirus linked to a Chinese wet market), COVID-19 spread from animals to humans, starting with those who worked in or frequented the market. Scientists suspect that they contracted the virus by eating or touching an animal who was infected.
It's easy for people in the UK, Ireland and the US to point the finger at China and other countries – including Mexico, where hundreds of sick pigs died on a massive farm in 2009 just before swine flu spread to humans. But there are disease-ridden animal factories around the globe, including in UK, Ireland and US.
Our demand for meat means that huge numbers of animals, such as chickens and pigs are crammed together on crowded, faeces-ridden farms, transported in filthy lorries, and slaughtered on killing floors soaked with blood, urine and other bodily fluids.
Pathogens flourish in such conditions.
And to make matters worse, animals on factory farms are routinely fed vast amounts of antibiotics in order to keep them alive in filthy, disease-ridden conditions that would otherwise kill them.
Because of this rampant use of antibiotics, certain bacteria have become resistant to even the most powerful ones, contributing to the emergence of "superbugs" – new, aggressive pathogens which are resistant to antibiotics, which could include another more deadly coronavirus variant.
The CDC has stated that antibiotic resistance is one of the world's most pressing public health problems, and other experts predict that at our current rate, more people will die of diseases caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria than of cancer by 2050,
This is a problem we cannot afford to ignore. And another reason why animal markets should be banned immediately, and why we should all try to reduce our meat consumption, if we can. Stay healthy! :)
Much like swine flu, bird flu and SARS (which was also caused by a coronavirus linked to a Chinese wet market), COVID-19 spread from animals to humans, starting with those who worked in or frequented the market. Scientists suspect that they contracted the virus by eating or touching an animal who was infected.
It's easy for people in the UK, Ireland and the US to point the finger at China and other countries – including Mexico, where hundreds of sick pigs died on a massive farm in 2009 just before swine flu spread to humans. But there are disease-ridden animal factories around the globe, including in UK, Ireland and US.
Our demand for meat means that huge numbers of animals, such as chickens and pigs are crammed together on crowded, faeces-ridden farms, transported in filthy lorries, and slaughtered on killing floors soaked with blood, urine and other bodily fluids.
Pathogens flourish in such conditions.
And to make matters worse, animals on factory farms are routinely fed vast amounts of antibiotics in order to keep them alive in filthy, disease-ridden conditions that would otherwise kill them.
Because of this rampant use of antibiotics, certain bacteria have become resistant to even the most powerful ones, contributing to the emergence of "superbugs" – new, aggressive pathogens which are resistant to antibiotics, which could include another more deadly coronavirus variant.
The CDC has stated that antibiotic resistance is one of the world's most pressing public health problems, and other experts predict that at our current rate, more people will die of diseases caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria than of cancer by 2050,
This is a problem we cannot afford to ignore. And another reason why animal markets should be banned immediately, and why we should all try to reduce our meat consumption, if we can. Stay healthy! :)
