Continuing attempts to curb the sale of wild animals and their meat have failed to engender change at wet markets in the Asia Pacific, even as the region struggles to contain the largest and deadliest wave of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), nearly three-quarters of emerging infectious diseases that spread to humans originate in animals.
The SARS virus, for example, which killed 800 people between 2002 and 2004, is thought to have started in bats before spreading to civets at a wildlife market in the Chinese city of Foshan.
In April, after its investigative team in China concluded a seafood market in Wuhan was the most likely route by which COVID-19 first jumped to humans, WHO took the unprecedented move of urging countries to pause the sale of captured wild mammals at wet markets as an emergency measure.
ADUN SPEAKS | High time for Royal Commission of Public Service
Modified2:43 am
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ADUN SPEAKS | The outgoing Inspector-General of Police Abdul Hamid Bador was not the first high-ranking government officer to contradict his minister in public. Way back in 1990 the then retiring air force chief Mohamed Ngah Said took a swipe at his minister, Tengku Ahmad Rithauddeen, who helmed the Defence Ministry.
However, there are several notable facts putting these two rare occurrences in their proper perspective and circumstances. While Abdul Hamid (
above) was a contract officer, the air force general Mohamed Ngah was not. And while Mohamed Ngah was serving a government whose legitimacy was not in question, Abdul Hamid was serving a government whose majority in Parliament has never been proved.
Covid-19: More are severely ill
Published
Modified4 May 2021, 1:06 am
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Key Highlights
India flights spotlight
More are severely ill
The Health Ministry said more are becoming severely ill from Covid-19 and many are younger people.
It pointed out that Covid-19 patients suffering from Category 4 or 5 symptoms have increased from 6.7 percent in January to 35.2 percent in April.
Category 1 and 2 patients suffer milder symptoms, Category 3 ones develop some form of pneumonia but can still breathe on their own, those in Category 4 need oxygen supply while Category 5 patients need a ventilator to breathe.
The ministry attributed this to younger people seeking treatment late and also the proliferation of new Covid-19 variants.