72 per cent in Japan see animal market closure key in curbing pandemics in the future: WWF
Workers clean a seafood market in Wuhan linked to an outbreak of a coronavirus. Photo: Simon Song. Sketched by the Pan Pacific Agency.
TOKYO, May 4, 2020, Kyodo. Seventy-two percent of Japanese believe a closure of illegal and unregulated markets in China and elsewhere selling wild animals would prevent pandemic diseases similar to the novel coronavirus from happening in the future, according to a recent survey by the World Wide Fund for Nature, The Mainichi reported.
The rate compares with 91 percent in Myanmar, 80 percent in Hong Kong, 79 percent in Thailand and 73 percent in Vietnam, according to the survey, which covered 1,000 respondents from each of the five Asian economies.
If measures are not taken to close or regulate such markets, 65 percent of the Japanese respondents said they would be extremely worried or very worried that a similar pandemic outbreak could happen in the future.
That rate was lower than 85 percent in Hong Kong, 83 percent in Myanmar and Vietnam, respectively, and 80 percent in Thailand.
In the four economies other than Japan, 90 percent or more of the respondents said they are very likely or likely to support efforts by their governments to close all illegal and unregulated wildlife markets in their country.
However, the rate for Japan was just 54 percent, apparently because 59 percent answered there are no such markets in Japan.
“In Japan, open wildlife markets for meat are not prevalent,” the WWF said. “Therefore, this may explain why only 54 percent claimed that they would support such government efforts.”
U.S. President Donald Trump and senior U.S. officials have accused China of a lack of transparency after the coronavirus broke out late last year in Wuhan, central China.
Citing “the strong link between illegal wildlife sold in wet markets and zoonotic diseases,” U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged Beijing to “permanently close its wildlife wet markets and all markets that sell illegal wildlife.”
In a statement issued April 22, Pompeo also called on the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations to take similar action.
ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
The virus has infected more than 3.5 million people around the world, including over 15,000 in Japan, with COVID-19 pneumonia.
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