4.4 • 796 Ratings
🗓️ 13 March 2020
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Where the coronavirus came from and why these diseases aren't a one-off. Manuela Saragosa speaks to Dr Juan Lubroth, former chief veterinary officer at the UN's Food and Agricultural Association in Rome, about the risks around so-called 'wet' markets prevalent in East Asia and South East Asia where live animals are sold. Professor Tim Benton, research director of the emerging risks team at the think tank Chatham House tells us why animals are often the source of pathogens that go on to affect humans. Patrick Boyle, a bioengineer with US biotech company Gingko Bioworks, describes the work to develop vaccines. Catherine Rhodes from the Biosecurity Research Initiative at Cambridge University tells us why she's not surprised governments are underprepared for the pandemic.
Producer: Laurence Knight
(Photo: A wet market in Taipei, Taiwan. Credit: Getty Images)
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0:00.0 | 13 minutes to the moon, season two. |
0:04.4 | I can't believe this. They're not going to land. |
0:06.8 | Episode one, available now. |
0:12.3 | Hello and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. I'm Manuela Saragossa. |
0:17.7 | Coming up, what does China's food distribution system have to do with the global |
0:22.4 | coronavirus pandemic? The current threat or risk is when you start mixing different live animals, |
0:30.8 | not only domesticated animals such as chickens or pigs, but now introduce wildlife. |
0:38.1 | And why some experts say governments should stop treating pandemics as one-off events. |
0:43.5 | This is very much part of a longer-term pattern that we should be starting to recognise as part of the future |
0:49.8 | and not deal with every single one as an independent thing. |
0:53.4 | That's all here in Business Daily from the BBC. |
0:59.1 | If you go on to social media or even listen to some broadcasting stations, |
1:03.7 | you'll be overwhelmed by the sheer number of conspiracy theories |
1:07.1 | surrounding the origin of the coronavirus. |
1:10.0 | But in this scientific community, the coronavirus's |
1:12.8 | origins have been linked to illegally traded wildlife at what's known as a wet market in Wuhan, |
1:18.7 | the capital of China's Hubei province. That's where the outbreak began. Of course, the exact source |
1:24.1 | hasn't yet been identified. But it's not the first time a disease has emerged from one of these sorts of wet markets, |
1:30.6 | which play a key role in China's food distribution system. |
1:34.0 | There's videos of markets like them online. |
1:42.2 | Of a market seller, bagging the inids of a slaughtered wild cat |
1:46.3 | or hacking there at a slaughtered dog |
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