China scientists identify pangolin as possible coronavirus host

 

FILE PHOTO: A man holds a pangolin at a wild animal rescue center in Cuc Phuong, outside Hanoi, Vietnam September 12, 2016. REUTERS/Kham

 

BEIJING (Reuters) - The deadly coronavirus outbreak in China could have spread from bats to humans through the illegal traffic of pangolins, the world’s only scaly mammals, which are prized in Asia for food and medicine, Chinese researchers said.

 

The pangolin is one of Asia’s most trafficked mammals, although protected by international law, because its meat is considered a delicacy in countries such as China and its scales are used in traditional medicine, the World Wildlife Fund says.

 

“This latest discovery will be of great significance for the prevention and control of the origin (of the virus),” South China Agricultural University, which led the research, said in a statement on its website.

 

The outbreak, which has killed 636 people in mainland China, is believed to have started in a market in the city of Wuhan, in central Hubei province that also sold live wild animals.

 

Health experts think it may have originated in bats and then passed to humans, possibly via another species.

 

The genome sequence of the novel coronavirus strain separated from pangolins in the study was 99% identical to that from infected people, China’s official Xinhua news agency reported, adding that the research found that pangolins to be “the most likely intermediate host.”

 

But Dirk Pfeiffer, professor of veterinary medicine at Hong Kong’s City University, cautioned that the study was still a long way from proving pangolins had transmitted the virus.

 

“You can only draw more definitive conclusions if you compare prevalence (of the coronavirus) between different species based on representative samples, which these almost certainly are not,” he said.

 

Even then, a link to humans via food markets still needs to be established, Pfeiffer added.

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-02-07

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6 minutes ago, snoop1130 said:

The deadly coronavirus outbreak in China could have spread from bats to humans through the illegal traffic of pangolins, the world’s only scaly mammals, which are prized in Asia for food and medicine, Chinese researchers said.

pretty limited sympathy for a country that is killing itself; do all countries do it ? sure, china just seems better at it

Maybe true, maybe NOT.  Maybe from a lab, maybe not.  I'm not believing anything that comes out of China.  Never did.  Probably 1 million infected now.

 

If I see farang no wear mask, you get deported!!!!  

Something good may come out of this,maybe China will stop eating 

endangered species.

regards worgeordie

20 minutes ago, ratcatcher said:

It was once said, believe it or not, that the Chinese will eat anything with a face.

I thought it was anything with legs, except a table !

regards worgeordie

1 minute ago, worgeordie said:

I thought it was anything with legs, except a table !

regards worgeordie

Well, at least a vege table.

The consequence of many severe famines, I guess. Didn't the Cambodians learn to eat tarantulas. 

32 minutes ago, worgeordie said:

Something good may come out of this,maybe China will stop eating 

endangered species.

regards worgeordie

Don't hold your breath. After the SARS outbreak, they announced a ban on the sale of civet cats in food markets. A recent documentary on food markets in China clearly showed stall holders selling civet cats.

Edited February 7, 20206 yr by GroveHillWanderer

It seems clear that the opportunity  to  ridicule people and cultures is rarely missed on TVF .

Hell will freeze over before anyone can show me a race or nationality that is beyond the perfect ideals of the general opinions of the imperfect ignoramus !

 

which other peoples eat more variety than Chinese?

 - WRT the default list menu that is offered up by the Zodiac?

26 minutes ago, Dumbastheycome said:

It seems clear that the opportunity  to  ridicule people and cultures is rarely missed on TVF .

Hell will freeze over before anyone can show me a race or nationality that is beyond the perfect ideals of the general opinions of the imperfect ignoramus !

 

I'm not sure it's really ridiculing the Chinese though, to put the spotlight on their habit of eating all kinds of exotic wild animals and keeping them in unhealthy and unsanitary conditions in crowded fresh food markets, thereby facilitating the proliferation of zoonotic diseases.

 

Chinese scientists say the Huanan Market was selling a huge variety of wild animals for consumption, including live cats and dogs, turtles, snakes, rats, hedgehogs and marmots. Menus and signboards posted online listed foxes, wolf cubs, monkeys and masked palm civets, among other animals.

 

Even the official Chinese media have excoriated their own citizens for continuing this dangerous habit.

 

A commentary from state-run China Central Television (CCTV) says:

 

Quote

“It rankles that some people out there are obsessed about game meat and eat to their heart’s content because of gluttony and greed,” it said.

 

“They harvested this evil fruit, making a whole city, a whole country, and even the entire human race pay such a heavy price; and the worst is yet to come.”

 

The strongly worded piece asked whether those “who love to eat, poach, and trade wild animals have been shaken by this, are feeling the least guilty conscience, or have confessed to their wrongdoing deep down,” and it lamented that the illegal trade in wild animals was not closed after SARS.

 

“Some people are still taking chances and opening the Pandora’s box again and again,” it added. “How can we be so forgetful?”

China bans wild animal trade

Edited February 7, 20206 yr by GroveHillWanderer

2 hours ago, worgeordie said:

Something good may come out of this,maybe China will stop eating 

endangered species.

regards worgeordie

And then you woke up ????????

2 hours ago, ratcatcher said:

Well, if they tried that, they'd have to faucet down their throat.

Very good, you have set yourself a tough task to better that one this year ????

4 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

The pangolin is one of Asia’s most trafficked mammals, although protected by international law, because its meat is considered a delicacy in countries such as China and its scales are used in traditional medicine, the World Wildlife Fund says.

Pangolins as World's most trafficked mammals was lifter as an important thing in Reddit as well as Imgur a day ago. 

 

Now the story has landed as 'real news' by Reuters. 

 

It's perfectly good to raise awareness of abused animals. 

 

It's also disgrace to abuse the status of some animals by calling them as infectors.

 

Plane carrying Canadians evacuating China’s coronavirus outbreak lands in Ontario

https://globalnews.ca/news/6517548/176-canadians-wuhan-bc/

 

All for a few internet likes and the money, which comes with it. Abusers.

 

 

 

1 hour ago, GroveHillWanderer said:

I'm not sure it's really ridiculing the Chinese though, to put the spotlight on their habit of eating all kinds of exotic wild animals and keeping them in unhealthy and unsanitary conditions in crowded fresh food markets, thereby facilitating the proliferation of zoonotic diseases.

 

Chinese scientists say the Huanan Market was selling a huge variety of wild animals for consumption, including live cats and dogs, turtles, snakes, rats, hedgehogs and marmots. Menus and signboards posted online listed foxes, wolf cubs, monkeys and masked palm civets, among other animals.

 

Even the official Chinese media have excoriated their own citizens for continuing this dangerous habit.

 

A commentary from state-run China Central Television (CCTV) says:

 

China bans wild animal trade

If the genuine interest of the Chinese Govt. were to actually  ban the consumption of such they would and could do so. The reality is that such announcements are simply  in compliance with International decrees based on whatever  merit is predominantly  argued as a diversion to more critical issues.

Scientific opinion versus cultural conforms do not often reach an easy concensus.

Contradictions become evident when the subject of elimination of a  vector of  disease is deferred even if  demonstrably possible.

We  are what we are because of our capacity to overcome...thus  far.But factors such as viruses have played a part of the process.

Has human proliferation and environmental destruction and manipulation strengthened  us or weakened  us ?

Will it be a  virus or some natural event or will it be ourselves that reduces  us to extinction eventually?

Our supremacy is  becoming increasingly  fragile.

Not impossible, but any mammal to mammal could have been involved I think.

4 hours ago, englishoak said:

 

Yea all from standard veggies or meat, dont see any Bat,Rat, dog, pangolin, koala, panda, spider, chicks, cats, bear, monkey or other manner of wild animals that arnt necessary... Chinese eating list is disgusting... most of the ivory trade is because of china too... 

I'm not sure what they eat is so much the problem, as the way the live animals are kept in filthy cages in fresh food markets. If these animals are sick (and some of them obviously are) they are still actively spreading virus particles into their surroundings, in close proximity to humans, other live animals, fresh food and meat etc.

 

If the animals were humanely slaughtered in properly-regulated, hygienic conditions before being brought to market, there surely wouldn't be nearly as much chance of these viruses crossing the species barrier.

Edited February 8, 20206 yr by GroveHillWanderer

all about money, don't think thais won't sell it for a quick buck

12 hours ago, Dumbastheycome said:

It seems clear that the opportunity  to  ridicule people and cultures is rarely missed on TVF .

Hell will freeze over before anyone can show me a race or nationality that is beyond the perfect ideals of the general opinions of the imperfect ignoramus !

 

Not all cultures as equal though are they and ones with very unhygienic practices of handling and eating of animals, which keep producing these viruses should not be about criticism. Nobody is perfect but not many have such filthy and dangerous habits as the Chinese when it comes to keeping and eating animals, walking around a market is enough to make me throw up, People are claiming it was made in a lab, yes it was and that was a market festering with all sorts of bacteria and viruses.

4 minutes ago, tonray said:

 

Yes...maybe they can learn civilzed Western ways and start force feeding ducks to produce fatty livers

Indian ways are better- stop eating animals altogether !

So the host is not a tin can of beans?

5 minutes ago, Orton Rd said:

Indian ways are better- stop eating animals altogether !

Indians eat their share of Chicken and Goat and Fish and Prawns...

4 minutes ago, tonray said:

Indians eat their share of Chicken and Goat and Fish and Prawns...

Many do, many don't. 

Are there any creatures which the Chinese don't eat?

Whats for diner tonight ham eggs chips and peas? had that last night whats in the fridge? Pangolin pie or I can smoke you a Panther on the barbie with caterpillar sauce????

12 minutes ago, jesimps said:

Are there any creatures which the Chinese don't eat?

Knew a Chinese girl from Singapore from who told me in the 70's she was taken by her family to a restaurant in HK where they had elephant trunk!

Troll posts and the replies have been removed.

 

Off topic posts and the replies have been removed. 

Max finds out his cousins are being eaten !

14 hours ago, Dumbastheycome said:

It seems clear that the opportunity  to  ridicule people and cultures is rarely missed on TVF .

Hell will freeze over before anyone can show me a race or nationality that is beyond the perfect ideals of the general opinions of the imperfect ignoramus !

 

Before anyone picks up that noble thought and runs amok with it, just to make it perfectly clear, nobody has ever caught any sort of virus from eating haggis.

16 hours ago, Ventenio said:

Probably 1 million infected now.

 

If I see farang no wear mask, you get deported!!!!  

1. surely not.

2. The minister not wear a mask either.