{"id":235553,"date":"2020-07-13T15:09:23","date_gmt":"2020-07-13T14:09:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/?p=235553"},"modified":"2020-07-13T15:12:58","modified_gmt":"2020-07-13T14:12:58","slug":"world-risks-another-virus-like-covid-19-un","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/?p=235553","title":{"rendered":"World risks another virus like COVID-19 &#8211; UN"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"mvp-content-main\">The United Nations Office on Drug and Crime (UNODC) says that the world risks another virus of the magnitude of COVID-19.<\/p>\n<p>The UN warned that this could happen if the trafficking, sales and consumption of wildlife are not stopped.<\/p>\n<p>UNODC, in a statement, said the World Wildlife Crime Report 2020 revealed that zoonotic diseases represented 75 percent of all emerging infections globally.<\/p>\n<p>Diseases like SARS-CoV-2 that caused COVID-19 pandemic have already been linked to wildlife with pangolins top on the suspected list.<\/p>\n<p>UNODC noted that the coronavirus pandemic \u201chas shown that wildlife crime is a threat not only to the environment and biodiversity, but also to human health\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>It said when wild animals are poached from their natural habitat, butchered and sold illegally, the potential for transmission of zoonotic diseases is increased.<\/p>\n<p>UNODC added that pangolins, which were identified as a potential source of coronavirus, were the most trafficked wild mammals in the world.<\/p>\n<p>The body decried that Nigeria played a significant role in the trafficking and sales of pangolins with at least 51 tonnes of pangolin scales seized in 2019, from just two tonnes in 2015.<\/p>\n<p>UNODC disclosed that in the last 20 years, it made 180,000 seizures from 149 countries and territories.<\/p>\n<p>Executive Director, Ghada Waly, stressed that if wildlife crimes were not stopped, they would heighten the risk of a future public health emergency.<\/p>\n<p>He said stopping the trafficking in wildlife species was a critical step not just to protect biodiversity and the rule of law, but to help prevent future public health emergencies.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo protect people and the planet in line with the Sustainable Development Goals, and to build back better from the COVID-19 crisis, we cannot afford to ignore wildlife crime\u201d, the official appealed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The United Nations Office on Drug and Crime (UNODC) says that the world risks another virus of the magnitude of COVID-19. The UN warned that this could happen if the trafficking, sales and consumption of wildlife are not stopped. UNODC, in a statement, said the World Wildlife Crime Report 2020 revealed that zoonotic diseases represented [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":235554,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14571,3],"tags":[14173,15084,1795,1968,11254],"class_list":["post-235553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","category-news","tag-coronavirus","tag-pandemic","tag-un","tag-who","tag-wildlife-park"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=235553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/235554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=235553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=235553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=235553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}