The World Health Organization (WHO) wants to stop selling live mammals on food markets. By restricting this practice, the emergence of new diseases must be prevented.
“Animals, especially wild animals, are the source of more than 70 percent of new infectious diseases in humans,” WHO said in a joint statement with the World Animal Health Organization and the United Nations Environment Program.
The health organization recognizes that markets are often crucial for the local population’s livelihood and food supply. Still, countries are being called upon to halt live mammals’ sale as an “emergency” measure.
This intervention is intended to protect the health of market traders and customers. They run the risk of germs spreading to humans.
Food markets with live animals came under a magnifying glass after the emergence of the coronavirus. Some of the first known patients were linked to a market in the Chinese city of Wuhan.