AN old joke narrates that if Adam and Eve were Chinese, we would not have inherited the sin of disobedience that Christians refer to as the original sin. The couple would have instead devoured the serpent, which tempted Eve to eat the forbidden fruit in Paradise.
The joke sounds derogatory, but it has factual basis. The Mainland Chinese, and some Chinese descents around the world, have been known to digest exotic, wild animals in the belief that doing so would primarily cloth them with sexual prowess, and secondarily give them long, healthier lives.
A viral YouTube video that I saw recently made me puke. It showed a group of young Chinese men in China having a drinking session while savoring live rat pups, which they drown in what appears to be a bowl of yellowish vinegar. One of the men proudly faced the camera as he chewed on the rat pup, much like he would munch on a burger.
Then, there is the annual Lychee and Dog Meat Festival, (or Yulin Dog Meat Festival) which is openly celebrated during the summer solstice in Yulin, Guangxi. For 10 days, festivalgoers devour dog meat and lychee. The festival, where an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 dogs are violently slaughtered and eaten, has been denounced by both animal rights and animal welfare groups.
While many Filipinos may deem this practice unacceptable, mainlanders consider it as natural as consuming pork, fish, chicken or beef. The danger here, however, is that some of the wild, exotic animals they eat are carriers of different viruses that constantly mutate to infect humans.
Now, we face a potential global outbreak from the swift contagion of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) —the pneumonia-like virus that emerged from Wuhan, China last month. It is a mutation of the severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus, which wrought health havoc globally between 2002 and 2004. The SARS ground zero was in China’s Guangdong province, which borders Hong Kong. A farmer believed to have consumed civet meat in the Shunde district of Foshan County was suspected to be the first human to have spread SARS. Years before SARS, there was the 1997 bird flu that originated in Hong Kong. Elsewhere, there was the Middle East respiratory syndrome, also known as camel flu, a viral respiratory infection caused by the MERS-coronavirus.
To prevent further spread of the 2019-nCoV, China has locked down the seafood and exotic meat market, and suspended all travel out of Wuhan, the outbreak’s epicenter, effectively placing it in quarantine, along with 12 other cities in central China’s Hubei province. Again, the virus is suspected to have come from the consumed exotic meat bought from the Wuhan market. The market offers, among others, corpses and live samplings of dozens of wild animals, from dogs, snakes, and bamboo rats to ostriches, baby crocodiles and hedgehogs.
Much like what happened during the bird flu and SARS outbreaks, China was reluctant to report the 2019-nCoV cases, thereby, contributing largely to its spread. The virus has lingered partly in shadow because China opted to regulate the disease’s story line. As the media tried to make heads or tails of the ominous plague, media outlets have reported inconsistent information, occasionally within the same day.
According to the latest available records, there are already more than 6,000 confirmed 2019-nCoV cases worldwide, 5,974 of which are in mainland China. The confirmed death toll has risen to 132, with no deaths outside of China. Australia has five confirmed cases. The US now has five confirmed cases in four states. New countries to confirm 2019-nCoV include Sri Lanka, Canada, Cambodia and Taiwan.
Despite pervent efforts of China, the WHO, and other countires to contain the disease, some Philippine officials have been observed to have taken a lackadaisical stance to stop the spread of the 2019-nCoV here.
On Tuesday morning, the World Dream cruise ship, carrying 778 passengers from Hong Kong, arrived at Pier 15 of South Harbor in the Port Area. According to Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Captain Armand Balilo, the tourists were given clearance to travel by the Philippine Quarantine Office. The move angered politicians, the public and netizens who complained that despite global efforts to stop the virus in its track, here we are exposing ourselves to the virulent disease.
Fueling the anger was the fact that a second cruise ship MV Ligulao from Lianyungang, Jiangsu in China arrived on Monday. Lianyungang is around 900 kilometers from Wuhan—the ground zero for novel coronavirus—plus the presence of thousands of Chinese here employed mostly by the Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators who have traveled back to the country after spending the Chinese New Year celebration in the mainland.
It is appalling, politicians say, that in spite of the Bureau of Immigration’s visa issuance suspension upon arrival, some Chinese were able to sneak in. The suspension of visa issuance is a “proactive measure to slow down travel, and possibly help prevent the entry of the 2019-nCoV.” into the country, according to the BI.
Although there’s no confirmed fatalities related to the virus has been recorded in the country, thus far, the sharp rise in infections is very much worrisome. It means that there has been significant human to human spread of the virus.
Health experts fear that the new strain may multiply easily than originally thought, or may have already been mutated. It is, after all, from the coronavirus family, which causes the common cold, and other deadlier diseases, such as the bird flu, SARS and MERS. These viruses infected thousands of people in the past two decades. Their common denominator:—they all come from animals.
WHO Country Representative Rabindra Abeyasinghe explained that the mortality rate of the 2019-nCoV has stayed at 3 percent. The agency, he said, recorded 976 severe cases, thus, had classified the risk level for the spread of the virus as “very high” in China and “high” at the regional and global levels.
There must be a global, concerted effort to permanently stop the consumption of wild exotic animals. China’s decision to “temporarily” halt it does not help any. The virus continuously mutates and it must be deprived of a host to restrain its spread. It is not something to be scoffed at. It is virulent and can kill millions of people worldwide in weeks if not contained. The country’s response to the outbreak has been wanting, to say the least. Government officials must learn that erring on the side of prudence in matters of national interest is always the right tact.
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