WHO, agencies urge countries to suspend sale of live wild mammals in food markets

International agencies including the World Health Organization have urged countries to suspend the sale of live wild mammals in food markets. They have warned that wild mammals may be the source of more than 70 per cent of emerging infectious diseases in humans.

 

The guidance, aimed at ensuring the global food system is safe and sustainable, follows a WHO-led mission to Wuhan, China to investigate the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Peter Ben Embarek, the WHO official who led the mission, said this in a



tweet. 

The WHO, the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) have urged countries to suspend the trade in live caught wild animals of mammalian species for food or breeding purposes. 

 

The WHO-led team, which visited the Huanan market in Wuhan where the first human infections of COVID-19 were detected, said the new virus had probably been transmitted from bats to humans through another animal.