China 'comprehensively bans' illegal wildlife trade over Coronavirus outbreak

China has reportedly declared an immediate and comprehensive ban on the illegal trade of wild animals that are believed to have sparked the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan. Officials claimed that the proposal was turned in to the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress that was implemented, confirmed reports.

China’s legislative committee held a meeting on February 24 and approved a proposal that suggested a comprehensive ban on all illegal wildlife trade and abolishing the consumption of wildlife aliment. The committee imposed the bans in a bid to protect people’s health and safeguard ecology within the country, suggest reports.

According to reports, Health Officials in China linked the coronavirus epidemic to the illegal wildlife marketplace in the central city of Wuhan, Hubei province. They said that the illegal market that sold wild animals to people for consumption is where the malignant disease originated and spread worldwide.

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China had ordered a temporary ban earlier

As of last month, China had ordered a temporary ban after the coronavirus epidemic began exploding across Hubei province saying that the ban was in place until the national epidemic situation was over with, confirmed reports. The standing Committee scrambled to make the ban permanent as the disease spread worldwide with confirmed cases of infection and fatalities rapidly soaring globally.

Health experts have reportedly criticized China’s trade of exotic animals for food saying that posed a significant threat to public health as it exposed consumers to dangerous pathogens. International media reports suggest that scientists speculated the source of the novel coronavirus to have emerged in bats or pangolins, that later transmitted to humans as SARS did from civets.

Civet, a cat-like species sold in the Wuhan market for consumption acted as a pathogen carrier during the SARS epidemic. Health experts hailed the move by China's government stating that the illegal Wildlife trade imposed major health risks to the general public health in not just China but in countries across the globe.

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(with inputs from agencies)