The captive animals are transported in shipping containers across borders. This provides a suitable condition for the spread and mutation of pathogens. Also in wildlife markets, different species of wild animals are put together furthering the spread of pathogens. These pathogens are easily spilled over to humans, and a greater potential for person-to-person transmission.

There have been various studies that seek to quantify the relation between global wildlife trade and the risk of emerging zoonotic diseases including pathogens such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), Human Immune Virus (HIV), and even the current COVID-19, which transfer from animals to humans. These pandemics continue to pose severe health and socio-economic impacts on human society.

In 2021, scientists from ‘The Nature Conservancy and the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment’ (ATREE) in India, launched an investigation into the subject. The study revealed that one-quarter of mammal species in the wildlife trade host 75 percent of the known zoonotic viruses. The researchers, therefore, concluded that the risk of disease transfer is much higher among those mammals commonly traded, as opposed to species that are not traded or are domesticated.

“From our findings, it is conceivable that wildlife trade (legal and illegal) is the key risk factor driving the global spread of zoonotic and emerging infectious diseases,” said lead author Dr. Shivaprakash Nagaraju, a senior scientist for The Nature Conservancy in India.

Also in 2007, most scientists re-emphasized the importance of zoonotic origins for many emerging infectious diseases epidemics of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) among others.

Previous reviews of human infectious agents affirm that most emerging infections were more likely to be viral and more probably to be zoonotic than the bacterial or protozoal pathogen.

 It is evident that wildlife trade increases the probability of many disease outbreaks apart from the risk of losing local biodiversity. It is for this reason that the UN, wildlife conservationists, and most scientists have joined the call to put an end to the wildlife trade.

REFERENCE:

Information from the UN, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov, and www.nature.org was used in this report