Beijing (AFP)

China has given the go-ahead for a bear bile medicine to treat patients who are victims of Covid-19, reviving controversy over the treatment of plantigrades bred for this purpose.

Environmental associations have long denounced the fate of thousands of bears in China, immobilized in narrow cages where their abdomen is punctured by a catheter connected to their vesicle in order to remove the bile.

The latter is sold for the therapeutic qualities that are attributed to it in traditional medicine. It is particularly supposed to help regulate cholesterol or dissolve gallstones and kidney stones.

But the substance, whose effectiveness is controversial, is now included in medical recommendations added by Beijing to the arsenal of fight against the new coronavirus.

The Chinese Ministry of Health recommended last month an injection called "Tan Re Qing" composed of bear bile, but also goat horn powder and plant extracts, for severely ill patients.

The regime of President Xi Jinping, who likes to vibrate the nationalist fiber, has for years praised the virtues of the traditional pharmacopoeia against Western medicine, and this time especially in the context of the fight against Covid-19.

Tan Re Qing is indicated in the treatment of respiratory diseases, including pneumonia, according to its manufacturer, the Kaibao laboratory in Shanghai.

But for the Animals Asia Foundation (AAF) association, using bear bile against the epidemic is both "tragic and contradictory", since China has just banned the trade in wild animals for food, in response to the appearance of the virus.

The latter was detected at the end of 2019 in a market in Wuhan (center), where wild species were traded.

- Endangered species -

Brian Daly, AAF spokesperson, fears that Beijing's official recommendation will add to the threat to the endangered species of Asian black bear.

"Promoting the use of bear bile may result in an increase in the volumes collected, not only at the expense of captive bears but also of those who are at large," he told AFP.

Bear bile production is legal in China but its export is prohibited by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

But some 20,000 plantigrades are none the less reduced in China to pour their bile for the benefit of a pharmaceutical market estimated at more than a billion dollars per year, according to Kirsty Warren, spokesperson for the World Society for the Protection of animals.

"Throughout Asia, the trade in bear bile is flourishing, even though it is prohibited in most states," protested Richard Thomas, of the Traffic association.

The active ingredient in bear bile, ursodeoxycholic acid (or ursodiol), can now be produced chemically in the laboratory, he recalls.

There is therefore "no reason to incorporate bear bile" into medication, he said.

In addition to the health risk posed by the wildlife trade, animal protection is becoming more and more essential in China.

At the gates of Hong Kong, the giant metropolis of Shenzhen has just banned the consumption of dog and cat meat this week.

According to the Humane Society International, Shenzhen is the first city in China to take such a step. No less than 10 million dogs and 4 million cats are slaughtered each year in the country for their meat, according to the association.

© 2020 AFP