Coronavirus: Wildlife wet markets put on notice in Indonesia and Singapore

Indonesia and Singapore will review the sale and slaughter of live animals at wet markets, authorities in both countries say.

The Australian revealed last week the Tomohon market was continuing to sell bats, alongside dogs and pigs, forest rats, pythons and other wildlife. Picture: Agung Maupa

Indonesia and Singapore will revie­w the sale and slaughter of live animals at wet markets, authorities in both countries say, amid an Australian-led global push to phase out wildlife meat markets that create a petri dish for the transmission of zoonotic viruses.

Indonesia’s chief COVID-19 scientist, Wiku Adisasmito, told a live-streamed press conference on Wednesday that wildlife wet markets still operating in the country, such as the Tomohon extreme meat market in north Sulawesi, were “like a cafeteria for animal pathogens”.

“Consuming wild animals is the same as playing with fire,” said Professor Wiku, who heads the expert staff of Indonesia‘s COVID-19 taskforce, in Jakarta.

“There is a high risk that needs to be controlled with wild or extreme­ animals.

“For instance, if the host of the virus is a bat’s body and it turns out to be appropriate in the human body then it has the potential to infec­t humans (zoonotic disease).

“Therefore, maintaining our immunity, always keeping clean, and stopping consumption of wild animals, are important precautions.

“In addition, we have warned the Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Environment and Forestry to co-ordinate and strengthen the surveillance capacity, conduct further research on viruses, and most importantly conduct massive campaigns and analysis of policies to limit or stop the consumpti­on of wild animals.”

Singapore’s Senior Minister for the Environment and Water Resource­s, Amy Khor, told parliament on Tuesday the government was reviewing the slaughter of live animals in wet markets in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The city-state outlawed the slaughter of live poultry at wet markets in 1992 but continues to allow strictly regulated slaughter of animals such as wild-caught turtles­, bullfrogs and freshwater eels in a ­few markets.

Dr Khor said there was no evidence of zoonotic disease transmission from such animals in Singaporean wet markets but “nonetheless, agencies are reviewing the sale and slaughter of live animals in wet markets, taking into consideration international benchmarking and scientific evidence”.

Despite US claims that the COVID-19 pandemic originated in a high-security Wuhan laboratory in central China famous for its study of bat-borne disease, most scientists believe the likely location­ for the spillover of the novel coronavirus from bats to an intermediate animal and then humans­ was the Wuhan seafood market, which also sold and slaughtered exotic animals.

The Australian revealed last week that the Tomohon market was continuing to sell bats, alongside dogs and pigs, forest rats, pythons­ and other wildlife, in what public health experts have warned is an “ideal petri dish” for the transmission of potentially deadly zoonotic pathogens.

Wild animals such as monkeys, civet cats, pythons, monitors, and bats are also still being kept crammed close together in cages and openly sold in Jakarta’s ­famous Pasar Burung (bird ­markets). Indonesian authorities brushed off concerns about all such markets last week, with the country’s COVID-19 taskforce spokesman Achmad Yurianto saying “the decision to discipline or close these ‘extreme’ markets should come from local authorities, not from us”.

But pressure is growing for government­s worldwide to crack down on them as the global death toll from the COVID-19 pandemic nears 270,000 people.

Australia’s Chief Veterinary Officer Mark Schipps, who is also the president of the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), wrote to every member nation of the OIE last week seeking support for a global study into whether the risks inherent in wildlife wet markets can be mitigated, or whether they should be phased out.

Wildlife wet markets across Asia and Africa, where captured and stressed wild animals are caged and slaughtered alongside species they would seldom otherwise have contact with, provide a near-perfect environment for transmission.

“We know the previous SARS outbreak arose out of a wet market and there is circumstantial evidence­ that was the case here,” Dr Schipps told The Australian.

“We know a number of pandemic diseases have arisen out of wildlife, including AIDS, MERS, Nipah, so it seems a basic first principle to try not to create a scenario where this would emerge again.”