Guest Comments by Angela Leary

Editor's Note:The writer works as media manager for the Animals Asia Foundation, a Hong Kong-based charity best known for its efforts to end bear-bile farming.

CHENGDU, Sichuan Province, China -- Recently, Jill Robinson, founder of the Animals Asia Foundation, was grounded at her organisation’s moon-bear sanctuary here after another passenger on a flight she took from Hong Kong tested positive for swine flu.

Health officials arrived at the AAF centre to tell Robinson that a male passenger sitting directly behind her on the plane had been confirmed as carrying the H1N1 virus and that she should stay quarantined for seven days.

“There’s a certain irony,” Robinson said. “Animals Asia works to close down disease-ridden live-animal markets and bear-bile farms with all their associated human-health risks, yet I was caught up in the swine-flu pandemic, which reports suggest originated on a pig farm.”

She had nothing but praise for the Chinese authorities’ handling of the situation. “It was a bit frustrating being quarantined, especially as I’m fighting fit. But the authorities took the right precautions and put the safety of citizens first,” she said.

“What I don’t understand is why the government doesn’t also act in regard to other human-health risks associated with animals – for instance, the consumption of diseased cats and dogs from filthy markets and the consumption of putrid bile from chronically ill bears. We’ve warned the Chinese authorities about these issues for years.

“The health authorities need to ask themselves what such filthy bile and filthy cat and dog meat do to the health of the people consuming it,” Robinson said. “At the very least, they should warn people not to consume bear bile and not to eat dogs or cats. It would cost nothing, but could save many lives and millions in health costs.”

AAF director of external affairs (for China) Toby Zhang stresses the need for government to tackle such animal-related health issues. “These are time bombs waiting to go off,” he said. “Guangzhou’s notorious live-animal markets are breeding grounds for disease, as are dog-meat breeding facilities.

“Cats arrive at markets infested with fleas and ringworm, with mucous weeping from their eyes and noses, their fur encrusted in faeces and falling out. Trucks take dogs and cats to markets in southern China with the animals crammed together in tiny cages, often for four or five days. Meat from chronically diseased animals is served at dinner tables and restaurants across China.”

Also recently , a dog cull in Hanzhong, Shaanxi Province, saw up to 40,000 dogs brutally beaten to death after 12 human rabies cases. “The only way to contain stray-dog populations is to de-sex and vaccinate against rabies,” Zhang said. “Yet local officials implement knee-jerk dog culls that don’t stop the spread of rabies because other, possibly rabid, dogs merely move into the area left vacant.”

These aren’t just animal-welfare issues. They’re human-health issues too. It’s time to solve them before more people die.

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