CNN, 11/12/03, Chinese live markets: One year on, animals still traded

[Guest guest]

http://www.cnn.com/2003/HEALTH/11/12/sars.china/

 

One year on, animals still traded

 

Experts say SARS could resurface this winter

 

Wednesday, November 12, 2003 Posted: 2:44 AM EST (0744 GMT)

 

China says its new SARS reporting system has gone into operation.

-MAIL ALERTS

GUANGZHOU, China (CNN) -- It is mid-morning and workers are unloading

cages packed with dogs and cats, rabbits and badgers at Zhengcha

animal market in Guangzhou city in southern China's Guangdong

province.

 

It is a smelly and depressing place. It is the kind of place where,

experts believe, the virus that causes severe acute respiratory

syndrome, or SARS, may have jumped from animals to humans.

 

It is a place where one can find an astonishing variety of creatures

-- all destined for the dinner tables as culinary delicacies in this

part of the country.

 

A year ago several cities in Guangdong province were hit by an

outbreak of atypical pneumonia.

 

At the time, medical workers had no idea that they were dealing with

a new type of coronavirus that would eventually infect more than

8,000 people in over 25 countries and kill more than 750.

 

Nobody in this part of China then suspected the virus might have come

from the animals sold in the market. It then spread to the nation's

northern part, crept over the border into neighboring Hong Kong and

traveled around the world.

 

At the height of the SARS epidemic in last spring, the Chinese

government banned the sale of wild animals in the markets.

 

But in August, a month after the World Health Organization (WHO)

declared the global outbreak was contained, the government lifted the

ban, drawing criticism both in China and abroad.

 

When CNN tried to get a closer look at the animals, the traders hid

them away and the market officials ordered to stop taping and leave.

 

Obviously they are very sensitive about the fact that traders are

still selling the masked palm civet, an animal that many researchers

believe was the source of the SARS virus.

 

The sale of farm-raised civets is legal in Guanzhou, but selling

those captures in the wild is not, although CNN has spotted many

civets without a limb, making it likely the animals were caught

illegally in leg hole traps.

 

" Clearly they know they're operating an illegal industry, " Jill

Robinson from Animals Asia told CNN. " They don't want us to have

evidence to show the government. "

 

Animal rights activist Robinson has been monitoring conditions in

markets like this for years.

 

" Hygiene in this market is non-existent. This place is just a melting

pot of misery and disease, " he said.

 

With still no vaccine available and many unknown factors surrounding

the disease, SARS could resurface this winter.

 

Last month Beijing unveiled a new anti-SARS taskforce aimed at

preventing any further outbreaks, and officials said hospitals and

specialist clinics began an intensive series of exercises in

preventing and handling the disease.

 

However, the traders in the animal market seem utterly unconcerned.

 

" SARS doesn't come from animals, " one woman told CNN. " People say it

comes from a foreign country's germ warfare program. "

 

Ignorance, filth, and official regulations that appear not to be

enforced -- all are the ingredients for what medical experts in

several countries fear could be a possible return of SARS.

 

CNN's Senior Asia Correspondent Mike Chinoy contributed to this report.

 

 

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