China’s Eating Habits Could Bring About ‘The End Of The Human Race’: Malayasian PM Mahathir Mohammed’s Media Advisor

Malayasian prime minister Mahathir Mohammad ’s media and communications adviser A Kadir Jasin has said that China’s eating habits could bring about ‘the end of the human race’, The Sun Daily reported

In a Facebook post, the veteran journalist hit out at China for spreading a deadly coronavirus that originated in Wuhan city. He blamed China’s voracious appetite for wild meats as the source of many recent deadly animal-borne diseases.

“The year of the rat saw China exporting the corona virus flu.“ he said in the post.

“China’s eating binge could be the beginning of the end of the human race,” Kadir added adding that the country must hold itself accountable.

The outbreak of coronavirus has been linked to a fish market at Wuhan, the capital of China’s central Hubei province. The Wuhan South China Seafood City market, which also sells chickens, bats, marmots and other animals, has been closed since 1 January. In Chinese food tradition, even roaches, rats, dogs, monkeys are not shunned.

According to the report in New Scientist, a team of reachers led by Wei Ji a at Peking University in China compared the genomes of five samples of the new virus with 217 similar viruses collected from a range of species. According to their conclusion, the new virus looks similar to those found in bats, but is most like viruses seen in snakes.

Malaysia had recently quarantined four patients suspected to have contracted the virus but further tests revealed that all four were negative. The country has urged its citizen to delay travels to Wuhan unless it was for important matters.

Thailand has confirmed four cases of the virus, Vietnam has reported two cases while the US, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore have all reported one case each.