China Allows Sale of Animal Tied to SARS

NY Times ^ | August 14, 2003 | KEITH BRADSHER

[flutters]

HONG KONG, Thursday, Aug. 14 - Chinese agriculture officials in Beijing have allowed farms to resume selling masked palm civets, a species that may have been the source of the SARS virus, and 53 other exotic species, although Chinese provinces retain the discretion to bar human consumption of these animals.

Following complaints from farmers and animal dealers, the State Forestry Administration issued a circular earlier this week allowing the sale of farm-raised animals from the 54 species, while maintaining a ban on the sale of animals caught in the wild, saying they might not be free of viruses. The circular said that the civet, a relative of the mongoose, and other species can be sold for use as pets, food, medicine or research.

But Malik Peiris, a microbiologist at Hong Kong University who helped discover in civets a virus virtually identical to the SARS virus in humans, said that there was no clear evidence that farm-raised civets were safer.

"I don't think we have enough information to make that distinction," he said.

The Beijing Star Daily reported on Wednesday, however, that the city of Beijing had already decided against allowing any resumption of human consumption of civets. But Chinese official in southern China said today that sales of civets and other species would resume soon in Guangdong Province, which abuts Hong Kong and is where the first cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome are believed to have occurred last November.

Many of the first cases involved people who either prepared exotic species or consumed them.

The World Health Organization declared on July 5 that SARS had disappeared around the world, but said people might be reinfected if an animal reservoir of the disease still existed. The W.H.O. has also expressed concern that the disease might follow the pattern of many viral respiratory diseases in fading away in the summer and returning in the winter.

The civet, a relative of the mongoose, has a pungent taste and is a popular delicacy in early winter in Guangdong, where its consumption is widely believed to help people keep warm during cold weather.

Henk Bekedam, the World Health Organization's chief representative in China, said that it was too early to say whether civets were safe to eat, but it was also too early to say conclusively whether civets or other wild animals were the source of SARS.

"There are indications that wild animals could be the source of SARS," he said. "We have to do some further research to verify if it's true."

[rustbucket]

Incredible.

There is also a long front page article in the Wall Street Journal about this bad decision.

[steve86]

There is also a long front page article in the Wall Street Journal about this bad decision.

Yes, and it is well worthwhile to pick up a copy of today's WSJ for that and the articles on page A-10.

One of the Q&A on A10:

Q: Will SARS return? A: Yes, SARS will likely return to humans....

[aristeides]

Ping.

[Betty Jo]

Here, Kitty,kitty!

[Domestic Church]

This almost sounds orchestrated. The idea of allowing sale of these animals is absurd unless the idea is to rev up the depopulation machinery.

[steve86]

Someone said they couldn't enforce the ban on sales of these animals anyway.

[Judith Anne]

Thanks for the pings, and thanks for posting the article, too...this isn't good news. As the article says, a virtually identical virus (read: the same virus) that causes SARS in humans is found in these animals. I don't expect China to acknowledge the next outbreak any sooner than it did the last one, to the detriment of world health.