Fast die Hälfte der gehandelten Wildtiere trägt krankheitsverursachende Krankheitserreger. Mehr als 40 % der gehandelten Säugetierarten teilen mindestens einen Krankheitserreger mit dem Menschen, verglichen mit nur 6 % der nicht gehandelten Säugetiere.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-01121-7
4 Kommentare
Almost half of traded wildlife carry disease-causing pathogens
More than 40% of traded mammal species share at least one pathogen with humans, compared with only 6% of non-traded mammals.
Nearly half of all wild mammal species traded for food, fur, research and traditional medicines carry at least one pathogen that causes disease in humans, estimates a study in Science, the first to quantify the role of the global wildlife trade in the transmission of pathogens.
The team combined 40 years of records from three main wildlife-trade data sets with a database of species with known associations to pathogens that was developed in 2021 by ecologists contributing to COVID-19 research2. Gippet’s team focused on mammal species because of their abundance in the wildlife trade — about one-quarter of mammals are traded — and their history of transmitting pathogens to people.
To analyse the data, the team created models to predict the risk of pathogen spread through trade interactions, accounting for circumstances including the species’ evolutionary histories, how close the animals live to human communities, whether they are consumed as food and whether they are used in scientific research, all of which could influence transmission.
Of 2,079 traded mammal species, the team estimates that 41% share one or more pathogens with humans compared with just 6.4% of non-traded mammals. The trade of live animals, rather than animal products, increases the likelihood of pathogens being spread from animals to humans, too. Illegal trade of animals played only a modest part in influencing the probability of transmission. Finally, longevity mattered: on average, a species shares an extra pathogen with humans for every decade that it is present in the wildlife trade.
For those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adw5518
If you had the same question I did:
> The carcasses of hog badgers and leopard cats hang at a wildlife market in China.
I’m unable to read the whole article, but would be curious to know how directional that is – e.g. trade animal populations carry human-communicable diseases because of their history of being in contact with people.
The stat about the positive correlation over time suggests there might be something there.
Scrolled through the article just to see if I could find out what animals I’m looking at in this picture… still don’t know.
I assumed it would be quite pathogenic, no?