After the coronavirus outbreak spread, campaigners working on wildlife conservation have called on the Chinese authorities to ban the wildlife trade permanently.

Markets where live animals are sold are thought to carry a higher risk of new kinds of pathogens spreading to humans, and it is believed the coronavirus outbreak spread from such a market in the Wuhan area.

China has temporarily halted wildlife-related business to make sure the coronavirus does not spread further, but conservationists think this is not enough.

They argue that a permanent ban on the wildlife trade would help ensure people's health security and would also play an important role in stopping illegal wildlife trafficking.

Campaigners believe trade in endangered animals keeps growing because various wildlife body parts are used in traditional Chinese medicine and there is demand for various wild animals as food in China.

More than 70 per cent of the types of infection that spread among people are thought to start in animals, especially wildlife.

World Health Organization experts believe there is a strong possibility the new coronavirus came from bats. But it is also thought that the virus may have infected some other, unknown animal before infecting humans.

The viruses behind Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (Mers) are also thought to have come from bats, but are assumed to have spread through civet cats and camels respectively before reaching humans.

Source: BBC Bangla. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.