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Controlling wildlife trade key to preventing health crises, study says

en that has been spread by the international trade in African clawed frogs, is now threatening some 30 percent of all of the amphibian species worldwide with extinction. And even parasites on animals in the trade carry animal and human pathogens, such as heartwater disease, Lyme disease, and babesiosis."

Besides direct effects of diseases to humans and animals, the economic impacts of disease spread have totaled hundreds of billions of dollars, disrupting human livelihoods and destabilizing trade. Even in a relatively managed trading system, livestock diseases, including bovine spongiform encephalopathy, foot-and-mouth disease, avian influenza, swine flu and others have cost global economies some $80 billion, the authors of the study say. The results from the poorly regulated trade in wildlife could be even more deadly and more costly.

"The cheapest way to contain these threats would be to minimize contact between species, which would decrease the risk of pathogens jumping from one species to another," said Karesh. "The trade flows in a network pattern, hence the major hubs in wildlife markets provide us with the best control opportunities for a fraction of the cost."


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Source:Wildlife Conservation Society


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