JAKARTA - Six days a week, the butchers of Tomohon gather at Indonesia's most notorious market and cut up bats, rats, snakes and lizards that were taken from the wilds of Sulawesi island.
The earliest cluster of coronavirus cases in the global outbreak was linked to a market in Wuhan, China, where live animals were kept close together, creating an opportunity for the virus to jump to humans. "It is like a time bomb," said Mr Billy Gustafianto Lolowang, manager of the Tasikoki Wildlife Rescue Centre in the nearby town of Bitung."We can only wait until we become the epicentre of a pandemic like Wuhan."
On Tuesday, a coalition of animal rights groups called Dog Meat Free Indonesia urged the nation's president, Mr Joko Widodo, to close wildlife markets to prevent the possible emergence of a new pathogen. Many of the markets are best known for selling birds taken from the wild in a thriving illicit trade that strips Indonesia's forests of an estimated 20 million songbirds a year.
Bruce wayne must not visit Indonesia !
If bat eating was cause, virus would have come long time back, bats are on menu for years. lab