COVID-19: Wuhan Bans Eating Of Wild Animals, Global Cases Exceed Five Million

Authorities in Wuhan have placed a banned on consumption of all wild animals by residents due to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.

The virus disease reportedly originated from a Wuhan seafood market where wild animals, including marmots, birds, rabbits, bats and snakes, are traded illegally. The first people infected with the disease were a group primarily made up of stallholders from the seafood market who contracted it from contact with animals.

However, the local administration in Wuhan, the city of about 11 million people in China’s central Hubei province, on Wednesday, announced that the eating of all wild animals was officially banned.

The authorities also banned the hunting of all wild animals while Chinese farmers were offered cash to quit breeding such exotic animals, stating that the metropolis would now become a ‘wildlife sanctuary’.

This decision comes after mounting pressure by many for China to crack down on the illegal wildlife trade which they blamed for causing the outbreak of the pandemic that has killed more than 320,000 people.

Meanwhile the global outbreak of the virus has now infected over five million people across the world, according to data by Worldometer. Global total cases now stand at 5,090,064.

The data also showed the United States has the most infected cases at 1,578,801, followed by Russia, Spain, Brazil and the UK with 308,705, 279,524, 275,382 and 248,818 respectively.

China, despite being the genesis of the virus, has only 87 active cases.

Also the US still ranks highest in total deaths with 94,143.

However, despite the low cases being recorded in Africa, South Africa, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco and Nigeria have recorded most cases with 17,200, 14,229, 7,542, 7,133 and 6,401 persons infected respectively. But total deaths in the continent stood at 2,963 spread across 48 countries.