DMFI campaigners warn that the cruel trade in dogs for human consumption exacerbates the transmission of deadly rabies and other zoonotic diseases. Despite global calls to tackle dangerous animal trades in light of the Covid-19 pandemic, the dog meat trade continues “business as usual” throughout Indonesia, with tens of thousands of dogs traded and slaughtered every month in dog meat-eating “hotspots” nationwide.
Despite the Covid-19 pandemic that continues to cause global economic chaos, infections and fatalities, authorities in major cities throughout Indonesia continue to turn a blind eye to the illegal dog meat trades that health experts and campaigners warn facilitate the transmission of fatal zoonotic diseases.
Some of Indonesia’s biggest stars, including Chelsea Islan, Andovi Dalopez and Sarah Sechan, feature alongside international celebrities Dame Judi Dench, Ricky Gervais, Joanna Lumley, Peter Egan, Rick Wakeman, and Lesley Nicol, in a video plea to President Jokowi to close down the country’s notoriously cruel and unsanitary live animal markets and dog and cat meat trades in the wake of Indonesia’s soaring COVID-19 crisis.