Why do so many viruses originate in China?

[ohhkay]

Please explain why SARS, Coronavirus and Swine flu have all started in a similar area.

Is it because the country is very large? Is it due to the large population?

Or is it selection bias?

Many other countries are densely populated with poor living conditions. And wet markets are not solely confined to China.

I'm genuinely curious, not racist.

'So - when we had battery farming here were the workers exploded to ‘super viruses’ or were the birds pumped with antibiotics to prevent this? Is that a factor?'

Not really as:

a) antibiotics are irrelevant to viral infections
b) in UK the humans do not chabit with the birds

Natural population control. It happens every hundred years.

1720 there was a bubonic plague outbreak in Europe.
1820 was the cholera epidemic in Asia
1920 was the so-called Spanish flu
2020 has Coronavirus

I heard someone talking about this on the radio and said that yes, it's due to crowded markets where animals are sold live and in poor conditions.

Ducks and pigs and people all in the same place at the same time.

It's a very densely populated area, with a lot of poor people (who may not have access to basic hygiene). They also don't have (or don't adhere to) the same levels of food hygiene laws and practice we have in the West, especially outside of the big cities.

I am sure it has something to do with the way animals are handled, the conditions they live in and the proximity in which humans/animals live. I went to Hong Kong a few years ago and was horrified to see all the poor animals in small cages lined up along the streets in the markets, all waiting for someone to buy, kill and eat them. Disgusting standards.

They don't particularly. Spanish Flu started in France. AIDS is still a pandemic in Africa. There are cholera pandemics right now, and boring old TB is still killing hundreds of thousands of children every year.

It's an availability error caused by news reporting. SARS sold a lot of papers and so similar events will be covered intensively.

@BritWifeinUSA

Bubonic plague was the mid 14th century.

Spanish flu infected 500 million and killed 50-100 million. Are you saying corona virus is on the same scale?

I would guess it's to do with the food they eat

China has urbanised very rapidly compared to other countries, hence people who are used to living around animals but more closely packed than they were in the past.

Goady score 20/10 OP

Oh for crying out loud. Can nobody just ask a straightforward question on here any more without being accused of goading or it being insinuated that they are racist?

Besides which, if the post only scores half marks for goodness, it's not actually very goody at all, is it?

All these snarky remarks of 'google it' are uncalled for. Most things asked on MN could be googled - why say it to this poster?

I'd hazard a guess at the animals being kept in poor conditions and very little medical intervention when one becomes ill.

Farming background here. I'm not talking about intensive farming (which is disgusting), or ones that slip through the net, but in the UK we have fairly high standards. Animals are vaccinated regularly, fed properly and PTS if nothing can be done for them. This generally means the livestock a farmer has are all relatively healthy animals. Markets in the UK have to follow guidelines to keep them from passing on diseases, and sick animals will be turned away and not sold. Slaughterhouses have "standards" to follow and although they're not without problems, I'd imagine they're still cleaner than the wet markets.
Regular testing for TB and such also stops it spreading (if one of your animals comes back as a possibility, you aren't allowed to sell any animals for 6 months and have to have entirely clean results the next time. Farms bordering yours are also likely to not be allowed to sell for 6 months, even if they're clean, just incase). Obviously, China doesn't uphold these practices.

I'd also imagine the large extent of trafficked and/or rare foreign animals sold in the markets which could have picked up diseases in transit doesn't help the situation, either.

Basically? There's no paper trail and accountability. People aren't looking after their animals properly and purely see them as a means to make money. The government has done nothing to stop this from happening. It was only a matter of time.

Because they are overcrowded in the respect of humans and animals. Because they eat animals alive.

The hygiene will be poor and it's all a perfect breeding ground for virus's to mutate.

The world is fighting back against the massive overpopulation and destruction. Homeostasis.

Ebola wasn't from there... Density of population speeds up transmission, poor food hygiene re eating from unhygienic markets & eating live vermin (live baby mice, snakes & bats are a delicacy). Sanitation in rural areas is bad too, that can't help. I did have a work colleague who was appalled re the general poor food hygiene there when he met his wife's family, reheating days old food etc, not using fridge & leaving things covered on stoves for a day or two was the norm apparently according to his wife.

There is a lot of evidence that the "Spanish Flu" started bin China:

www.google.com/amp/s/api.nationalgeographic.com/distribution/public/amp/news/2014/1/140123-spanish-flu-1918-china-origins-pandemic-science-health

Lots of countries have markets selling live animals to be bought live, killed and eaten - here's one in France: fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/March%C3%A9_de_Louhans#Le_agriculteurs

If more epidemics originate in China it's presumably a combination of factors. Lovely that OP has such great trust in the Mumsnet community as a source of expertise on the subject.

You would think banning the consumption of bats, improving animal welfare would be a very easy fix for the Chinese govt to implement.

Because they eat animals alive.

Alive? Explain please. Even though I suspect I don't really want to hear this.

For PP saying why don't you google, there would be far fewer threads on MN if people just googled! Isn't this partly the point of MN to ask questions and debate issues

So many people and animals living in one place in guessing.

And the question isn't goady at all. If it was then surely every discussion on here would be ? 🙄🙄🙄 Mumsnet would be a pretty shit, bland place without interesting, informative discussions. It isn't all cheeky fuckers taking over gardens and prams on buses. And it would be something I didn't use if it was 💁🏻‍♀️

Came on to say that same as ineedaholidaynow If no-one posted about things they could google mumsnet would half overnight.

High population density, climate, living close to wild animals and food hygiene standards

Good grief. OP hasn't done anything wrong by asking this. Plenty of MN threads are about things that could be googled (or really needn't even be discussed at all), so why jump all over this one? If you don't like it, you needn't reply.

I think animals sold live n France would be subject to a whole raft of EU safety regulations involving provenance, transport, tracking, welfare standards etc.

Brit thank you! I've been saying this and people are really over sensitive to it. I jeep trying to pint out humans ate only one form of nature on earth. That earth itself is a natural living form. That we need to stop thinking we are the intelligent and most important habitants of earth.
Especially because our medical interventions are what's causing these mutations!

There's a reason we don't have dinosaurs anymore!