COVID-19 OUTBREAK: WET MARKETS AND THE ETHICS OF ANTHROPOHOLISM

COVID-19 pandemic has spread to over 150 countries beyond China and the Asian continent shortly after it was declared a Public Health International Emergency on January 30, 2020. Early environmental samples suggest that the index patients were either market employees, regular visitors or stall owners of a Wuhan wet-market in China during late December 2019 and early January 2020. Prominent earlier outbreaks such as SARS Coronavirus, Ebola, HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) and the influenza-A virus are suspected to have some form of origin in ?wet markets'. ?Wet markets' create unique opportunities for zoonotic emergence as several species of wild animals frequently come into contact with humans and domestic animals which enabled rapid viral evolution and emergence. Hence, the existence of ?wet markets' should be called into question. This research attempts to jettison the prevailing anthropocentric worldview which allows humans to see animals as only having instrumental value and underpins the existence of ?wet markets' for the ethics of ?anthropoholism'. This work argues that humans need to embrace the ethics of ?anthropoholism'; which sees animals as having inherent value and humans as caretakers of the environment. Anthropoholism advocates that humans should display the ?live and lets live' attitude towards animals, allow them live in their natural habitat and abolish the existence of ?wet markets'.