Coronavirus: WHO must halt wildlife meat trade, says Scott Morrison

Scott Morrison has blamed China for the COVID-19 outbreak, calling on WHO to close the country’s exotic meat markets.

Pangolins have been found to carry coronaviruses closely related to COVID-19. Picture: AFP

Scott Morrison has laid the blame for the coronavirus squarely with China, calling on the World Health Organisation to “do something” about the country’s wet markets where the disease is believed to have originated.

As Beijing sought to cast fresh doubt on the source of the virus, the Prime Minister said there was no question it came from China.

“This virus started in China and went around the world. That’s how it started. We all know that,” Mr Morrison told 2GB on Friday.

He said China’s wet markets — which are reportedly reopening now the country is emerging from lockdown — were “a big challenge for the world in the future”.

“It is not the first time we’ve seen these types of viruses come out of these sorts of places. And we don’t have them here and there is a good reason,” he said.

Smuggled pangolins, a scaly anteater found in Asia and Africa, have been found to carry coronaviruses closely related to COVID-19. Scientists believe the animals may have caught the virus from bats and passed it to humans at a Wuhan wet market.

Pangolin is a delicacy in China, where its scales sell for nearly $5000 a kilogram for their claimed medicinal properties.

“From a world health point of view, this is something the World Health Organisation should do something about,” Mr Morrison said. “All this money that comes out of the UN and the WHO … this is why we have to be quite strident about these things.”

A spokeswoman for Health Minister Greg Hunt said environmental samples from a Wuhan wet market taken in December 2019 tested positive for the COVID-19 virus, “suggesting that the market in Wuhan was the source of this outbreak” or played a role in its initial amplification.

Chief Health Officer Brendan Murphy backed the assessment, saying wet markets — where wild animals and wildlife products are sold in unsanitary conditions — were a “well identified risk”.

“Zoonotic viruses that spread from animals to humans are our biggest risk and that is what we’ve seen with COVID-19. And clearly that risk is much greater when you have close contact with a lot of live animals and human beings,” Dr Murphy said.

Former foreign minister Bob Carr said China needed to “give bold assurances to all its friends and partners that it has absolutely banned any trade in the meat of wild animals”. “Everyone comments on China’s authoritarian system, but I don’t think it was authoritarian enough in ­applying … a prohibition on trade in endangered wildlife.”

He said he hoped local officials who allowed the trade had been dealt with, “but they should have been dealt with before the trade permitted what we all assume has happened — the transmission of a virus from bats to humans”.

China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, continued to raise questions over the origin of the virus this week, suggesting it may have come from outside the country.

“It is true Wuhan was where COVID-19 cases were first reported. But where and when exactly did this virus originate?” Ms Hua said. “On the origin of the virus, the Chinese government’s position has been consistent. It is a ­serious matter that requires scientific … assessment by experts.”

Chinese officials have previously suggested it may have been brought into the country by US defence personnel.