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(July 10, 2020) WCS commends the recent UNEP report "Preventing the Next Pandemic: Zoonotic diseases and how to break the chain of transmission," and welcomes its 10 recommendations to help prevent future outbreaks. However, they are not sufficient if we are truly to prevent another COVID-like pandemic. WCS believes bolder steps are required. 

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(July 06, 2020)  Zoonotic diseases result from pathogens jumping or spilling over between animals and humans. Think rabies, lyme disease, West Nile virus, HIV and Ebola. Today, as COVID-19 ravages our communities, we all understand the impact they can have.  Between 1940 and 2004, more than 335 emerging infectious disease outbreaks, involving 183 distinct pathogens, were reported worldwide (more than 50 per decade) and the rate of disease emergence is increasing.  We must act to reduce the l...

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(June 23, 2020) The ongoing pandemic of COVID-19 has heightened awareness of the potentially devastating impacts of spillover of zoonotic emerging diseases from wild animals to humans. WATCH Dr Amanda Fine discuss why this has placed more attention on high-risk activities such as trade in wildlife.ABC News: How Coronavirus Has Placed More Attention on Wildlife Trade 

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(June 17, 2020) A recent study by the WCS Health Program team in Vietnam found high proportions of Coronavirus positive samples among rodents destined for human consumption. The proportion of positives significantly increased along the supply chain from trappers and traders (21 percent), to large markets (32 percent) to restaurants (56 percent). Viruses from Field to Fork: Study Finds That Wildlife Supply Chains for Human Consumption Increase Coronaviruses’ Spillover Risk to PeopleSaid Amanda Fine, W...

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(June 08, 2020) The hunting, trade and consumption of wild meat, or bushmeat, in Central Africa is a past, current and potential future zoonotic disease risk. Pathogens that have spread to humans from bushmeat include HIV, simian foamy virus, monkeypox virus, Ebola viruses, anthrax, herpesviruses, retroviruses and paramyxoviruses. Although zoonotic disease transmission can occur at any point along the bushmeat supply chain, from hunting in the forest to the point of consumption, markets in large urban areas are...

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