April 8, 2020 Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) WHO Headquarters Avenue Appia 20 1211 Geneva, Switzerland Ms. Monique Eloit Director-General, World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) OIE Headquarters 12 rue de Prony 75017 Paris, France Qu Dongyu Director-General, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) FAO Headquarters Viale delle Terme di Caracalla 00153 Rome, Italy Dear Directors General, In order to help prevent the next pandemic, we write today to urge your organizations to take aggressive action toward a global shut down of live wildlife markets and a ban on the international trade of live wildlife that is not intended for conservation purposes. Live wildlife markets, known as “wet” markets, were linked to the 2003 SARS outbreak and are believed to be the source of the current COVID-19. As this pandemic continues to threaten the lives of millions, pushes healthcare systems to the breaking point, and devastates economies around the world, it is imperative that we all take action as a global community to protect public health. Scientists studying zoonotic diseases – diseases that jump between animals and humans – have pointed to the close proximity of shoppers, vendors, and both live and dead animals at wildlife markets in countries around the world as prime transmission locations for these pathogens. The stress of transport and holding wild animals in these crowded markets where they are also sometimes slaughtered creates an unnatural environment where viruses from different species are able to come in contact, mutate, and spread from one species to another. The viruses can subsequently spread or “spill over” into humans through handling and consumption of wildlife, potentially starting highly contagious outbreaks of new and deadly diseases for which we have no natural immunity -- as we are currently seeing with COVID-19 and have seen with SARS, Ebola, monkeypox and Lassa fever in the recent past. “Wet” markets in particular pose a threat to global public health because wildlife comes from many different locations without any standardized sanitary or health inspection processes. Market vendors cage animals of different species in close proximity, where the animals are likely to urinate, defecate and potentially bleed or salivate on the animals below them. The risk to food buyers can also be through the slaughter of animals in front of customers, releasing disease carrying fluids like blood, saliva, and excrement into the air, which can then splash or splatter on nearby people, be consumed or inadvertently inhaled by humans. Scientists estimate that approximately 60-75% of emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic and that approximately 72% originate from wildlife. Scientists also estimate that the majority of all future emerging infectious diseases will be zoonotic in nature, and zoonotic diseases are the ecological source for a long history of infectious diseases. For example, in the past 45 years, at least five pandemics have been traced back to bats. Ebola, which has killed 13,500 people in multiple outbreaks since 1976, Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome, better known as MERS, which can be found in 28 countries, and the Nipah virus, which has a 78% fatality rate, all originated in bats. In the case of SARS and the COVID-19 outbreak, bats were also the original hosts. Bats then infected other animals, who infected humans. In the case of HIV, a virus originally developed in chimpanzees and spread to humans when humans hunted these chimpanzees for meat and came into contact with their infected blood. It is clear that to protect human health, these close and sustained interactions with wildlife must stop. While China has banned the trade and consumption of wild animals in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, there are significant loopholes relating to the current legal trade of wildlife for medicinal purposes. China took similar steps after the 2003 SARS outbreak, but ultimately lifted the restrictions after the outbreak came under control and perceived risk decreased. As leaders of organizations tasked with ensuring human and animal health, we urge you to work with member states to ensure that live wildlife markets are closed permanently in all countries and that the international trade of live wildlife not intended for conservation purposes is banned. We thank you for your attention to this issue. Sincerely, /s/ Cory A. Booker _________________________________ United States Senator /s/ Lindsey O. Graham _________________________________ United States Senator 2 /s/ Mike Quigley _________________________________ United States Representative /s/ Michael McCaul _________________________________ United States Representative /s/ Patrick Leahy _________________________________ United States Senator /s/ Kevin Cramer _________________________________ United States Senator /s/ Chris Van Hollen _________________________________ United States Senator /s/ Thom Tillis ________________________________ United States Senator /s/ Christopher A. Coons _________________________________ United States Senator /s/ Martha McSally _________________________________ United States Senator /s/ Jeffrey A. Merkley _________________________________ United States Senator /s/ Cindy Hyde-Smith _________________________________ United States Senator 3 /s/ Jeanne Shaheen _________________________________ United States Senator /s/ Marco Rubio _________________________________ United States Senator /s/ Gary C. Peters _________________________________ United States Senator /s/ Richard Burr _________________________________ United States Senator /s/ Sheldon Whitehouse _________________________________ United States Senator /s/ David A. Perdue _________________________________ United States Senator /s/ Richard J. Durbin _________________________________ United States Senator /s/ Cory Gardner _________________________________ United States Senator /s/ Tom Udall _________________________________ United States Senator /s/ Marsha Blackburn _________________________________ United States Senator 4 /s/ Martin Heinrich _________________________________ United States Senator /s/ Dianne Feinstein _________________________________ United States Senator /s/ Brian Fitzpatrick _________________________________ United States Representative /s/ Ann McLane Kuster _________________________________ United States Representative /s/ Marcy Kaptur ________________________________ United States Representative /s/ Nanette Diaz Barragán _________________________________ United States Representative /s/ Donna E. Shalala _________________________________ United States Representative /s/ Raul Grijalva _________________________________ United States Representative /s/ Matt Gaetz _________________________________ United States Representative /s/ Jesús G. García _________________________________ United States Representative 5 /s/ James P. McGovern ________________________________ United States Representative /s/ Darren Soto _________________________________ United States Representative /s/ Jan Schakowsky ________________________________ United States Representative /s/ Bill Posey _________________________________ United States Representative _________ United Sta /s/ Joe Neguse _________________________________ United States Representative /s/ Steve Cohen _____________________________ United States Representative /s/ Fred Upton ________________________________ United States Representative /s/ Grace Napolitano _______________________________ United States Representative /s/ Bill Foster ________________________________ United States Representative /s/ Earl Blumenauer ________________________________ United States Representative 6 /s/ Sean Casten _________________________________ United States Representative /s/ Jerry McNerney ____________________________ United States Representative /s/ Steve Chabot _________________________________ United States Representative /s/ Pete Aguilar _________________________________ United States Representative /s/ Bill Pascrell Jr. ________________________________ United States Representative /s/ Donald M. Payne Jr. _______________________________ United States Representative /s/ Betty McCollum _________________________________ United States Representative /s/ Lizzie Fletcher _________________________________ United States Representative /s/ Raja Krishnamoorthi _________________________________ United States Representative /s/ Chrissy Houlahan _________________________________ United States Representative 7 /s/ Abigail D. Spanberger _________________________________ United States Representative /s/ TJ Cox _________________________________ United States Representative /s/ Eleanor Holmes Norton ________________________________ United States Representative /s/ Gerald E. Connolly _________________________________ United States Representative /s/ Mike Gallagher _________________________________ United States Representative /s/ Debbie Dingell _________________________________ United States Representative /s/ Daniel W. Lipinski _________________________________ United States Representative /s/ Christopher H. Smith _________________________________ United States Representative /s/ John Katko _________________________________ United States Representative /s/ J. Luis Correa _________________________________ United States Representative 8 /s/ Jaime Raskin ________________________________ United States Representative /s/ Ken Buck ________________________________ United States Representative 9