By Liam Mannix
June 14, 2020 – 4.27pm

Coronaviruses are extremely widespread in wild animals bred for food in
Vietnam, with the wildlife supply chain quickly spreading those viruses to
uninfected animals, preliminary research shows.

The study did not find the specific strain of coronavirus that causes
COVID-19, but it illustrates how efficiently the $300 billion global
wildlife trade amplifies animal viruses and brings them into contact with
humans – the exact process most scientists suspect is behind the emergence
of COVID-19 at a wet market in Wuhan.

“These results are pretty much what all of us in this business expect,” said
Professor Hamish McCallum, a wildlife disease ecologist at Griffith
University’s Environmental Futures Research Institute.

“If you wanted a way to transfer viruses between species and amplify them,
you couldn’t find a better way to do it than wildlife trading.”

Humans are affected by a few hundred viruses; scientists…