- GUANGZHOU, China (Reuters)
- Two little boys giggle as they play hide and seek among hundreds of filthy
cages packed tight with civet cats, dogs, porcupines and squirrels.
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- Health experts fear that wild animal markets like this
one in southern China's Baiyun district could be the source of the next
SARS epidemic that many fear will emerge this winter, but traders and workers
here could not be more oblivious.
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- Amid the stench of death and decay, traders of exotic
animals -- a culinary delight for many southern Chinese -- haggle over
prices with customers, occasionally turning their attention to their children,
pinching their cheeks or tousling their hair.
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- Narrow passageways are strewn with animal dung, urine,
entrails and grimy fodder.
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- "What's there to be afraid of?" asked Mrs.
Huang, carrying her three-month-old daughter on her back. "We have
been working and living here for years and we have had no problems."
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- A few steps away, men with iron pipes clubbed a dog unconscious
and slit its throat. Others squatted around another dead dog, plucking
it clean of hair with their bare fingers.
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- Virologists believe that such markets in China and farms
where people live in very close proximity to animals are fertile breeding
grounds for disease and viruses.
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- China banned the wild animal trade and shut the markets
in May, around the time that scientists in Hong Kong identified viruses
in a civet cat and raccoon dog that were almost identical to the SARS virus
that had infected more than 8,000 people around the world, killing more
than 700 of them.
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- The finding gave credence to widespread speculation that
the virus, which first surfaced in southern China last November, may have
jumped the species barrier from animals to humans.
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- But when Chinese experts failed to verify the report,
the trading ban was lifted and the markets reopened in August.
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- Civet cats, which are not true cats but are related to
the cat family, have also returned to the menus of many restaurants in
Guangdong, China's most prosperous province.
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- In February, a doctor from Guangdong infected with SARS
traveled to neighboring Hong Kong, one of just hundreds of thousands of
people who cross the border each day. Visitors to Hong Kong then unwittingly
carried SARS to more than 30 countries around the world.
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- SARS: ANIMAL VIRUS OR BIOCHEMICAL WEAPON?
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- Beijing, stung by worldwide criticism after it tried
to cover up the initial SARS outbreak, has ordered that all wild animals
destined for dinner tables must be reared on farms, where they can be monitored
for signs of disease.
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- But many animals in the Baiyun market were missing limbs,
clear indicators that they were trapped in the wild. Left to bleed and
confined in cages so small and crowded that they could not move, many were
badly infected and barely alive.
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- Still, animal traders are dismissive of what experts
have to say about the possible origins of SARS.
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- "SARS cannot have anything to do with the civet
cat or any animal that's sold here. They are a part of our lives and there
is no one here I know who has died," said Yang Dong, 25, who has been
in the wild animal trade since leaving secondary school.
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- "I am hardly ever ill and I eat civet cats all the
time," he said, flexing his arm muscles proudly.
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- Standing with one foot on a cage with a civet cat gnawing
the sole of his shoe, Yang said of SARS: "I bet it is caused by some
biochemical weapon."
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- However, a recent study in Guangzhou found SARS antibodies
in about 13 percent of animal traders, indicating that they had been exposed
to the virus. One of many unanswered questions about SARS is whether people
with mild or no symptoms can infect others.
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- The civet cat has long been highly prized for its tender
meat, which is reputed to help blood circulation, but there are growing
signs that more Chinese believe it could pose a health threat.
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- An average civet cat, similar in size to a typical house
cat, used to command up to 800 yuan ($98). Since the SARS outbreak, they
sell for only 200 yuan.
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- But few medical experts believe that the trade is about
to disappear. Demand is especially strong in winter, as Chinese believe
that wild animal meat helps keep the body warm.
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- "It's hard to stop a trade that is so old. If it
must go on, then we should have it properly regulated and monitored,"
said Guan Yi, a microbiologist at the University of Hong Kong.
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- No one knows how much the wild animal trade is worth,
although traders at Baiyun claim over a million yuan a day changes hands.
Trader Yang suffered losses for the first time when officials closed the
Baiyun market this year.
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- "I lost over 10,000 yuan. But even I am among the
lucky ones. Some of my friends lost several hundred thousand!" Yang
said.
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- "If this trade is stopped permanently, how are we
going to survive? So many people and their families depend on it."
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