Fw: SCMP story - AAF and CWCA quote

[Guest guest]

19th June 2003

HEALTH CHIEF DEMANDS BETTER HYGIENE FOR EXOTIC DISHES

South China Morning Post

 

Shenzhen's health chief has called for tougher hygiene standards at farms

where wild animals are raised for food.

 

Zhou Junan made the appeal after he was asked whether there would be new

policies on the consumption of wild animals following the discovery of a

strain of coronavirus in masked palm civets, bats, snakes and monkeys, which

was genetically similar to the Sars virus.

 

To control the transmission of diseases from animals to humans, Guangdong's

forestry administration issued an emergency notice prohibiting the breeding,

consumption and trading in wild animals as soon as the findings were

announced.

 

But Mr Zhou said exotic food was popular with local residents and scientific

methods should be employed to raise wild animals for the dinner table.

 

Although the discovery by Shenzhen experts working with Hong Kong scientists

pointed to an animal link to the disease, Mr Zhou said this did not mean

that all wild animals should be quarantined.

 

" We are not saying all masked palm civets have the coronavirus, " he said.

 

" We will take more measures to raise them like we raise chickens and ducks.

 

When we raise poultry, we make it sanitary and we can eat it. If we manage

[wild animal farming] properly, it will be just like [raising] poultry. "

 

But Mr Zhou's remarks did not go down well with Chen Runsheng,

secretary-general of the China Wildlife Conservation Association, who

questioned the eating of wild animals. " We have to abolish it, " Mr Chen

said. " It's not a traditional Chinese culture. It's a bad habit. The

industry of protecting wild animals is one that must develop. The industry

of eating wild animals is a short-lived one. "

 

He said there was a need to strengthen the law to create a greater deterrent

to eating wild animals.

 

Last week, Guangdong deputy health chief Wang Zhiqiong also said eating wild

animals was a bad habit.

 

The founder of the Animals Asia Foundation, Jill Robinson, called Mr Zhou's

proposal " utterly unrealistic and dangerous " .

 

" He's right that we can domesticate wild animals, but it's not going to

happen in his lifetime, " she said. " It takes thousands of years to

domesticate wild animals. These animals are going to be stressed, and

stressed animals are capable of incubating new viruses. "

 

Ms Robinson said her foundation sympathised with people who raised wild

animals and that she was prepared to work with the government to compensate

them.

 

Sars expert Zhong Nanshan, the director of the Guangzhou Institute of

Respiratory Diseases, urged caution in drawing a quick conclusion.

 

" I do not think that masked palm civets or other wild animals directly

transmitted the Sars virus to humans, " he said.

 

" Before Sars, people in Guangdong had eaten masked palm civets and had had

contact with wild animals for years and not fallen ill.

 

" So we should not draw a conclusion about the chain of transmission so

quickly. More studies are needed. "