March 19, 2020

COVID-19: The Wildlife Trade and Human Disease

Christian Walzer, executive director of global health at the Wildlife Conservation Society, talks about how the wildlife trade, especially for human consumption, can lead to disease outbreaks.

By Steve Mirsky

Wildlife Conservation Society and Global Wildlife Conservation

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This is another in our series of coronavirus episodes of Scientific American’s Science Talk, posted on March 19, 2020. I’m Steve Mirsky.

In early March, the prime minister of Vietnam directed the government to draft a directive to prohibit wildlife trade and consumption, to be submitted to him by April 1, 2020. In February China took similar actions.

To find out more about the wildlife trade and its relationship to the current coronavirus outbreak, I called Christian Walzer. He’s the executive director of global health at the Wildlife Conservation Society. We both live in the Bronx, but due to the current situation, we spoke by phone.

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[WALZER SEGMENT]

That’s it for this episode. Get your science news at our Web site (www.ScientificAmerican.com), where we’re bringing you the latest news and insights about the coronavirus outbreak—all of which is available free. And as always, we have other science news for your edification and enjoyment.

Follow us on Twitter, where you’ll get a tweet whenever a new item hits the Web site. Our twitter name is @sciam. For Scientific American’s Science Talk, I’m Steve Mirsky. Thanks for clicking on us.

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