The illicit trade in donkey skins driven by China sees nearly five million animals killed each year and is a “ticking time bomb” for the spread of infectious diseases among humans, according to a new report.
It is estimated that about 13,000 donkeys are slaughtered every day for their skins around the world, equivalent to 4.8 million a year, which go on to be turned into ejiao, a traditional Chinese remedy.
Practitioners say, with no scientific evidence, that ejiao helps with everything from fatigue and boosting the immune system to the suppression of cancerous tumours.
Now, The Donkey Sanctuary, a British charity based in Devon, has warned that the booming but illegal trade risks spreading zoonotic diseases, infections that are capable of jumping from animals into humans, like the Covid-19 virus.
It cited a new report that highlights the prevalence of different pathogens and antibiotic resistant germs in donkey skins transported across the world.
“Until now, the global donkey skin trade has largely been unrecognised as a biosecurity hazard,” the charity said.
“What is revealed is an unregulated free-for-all, devoid of proper veterinary and biosecurity oversight, and where obligations for exporting, and requirements for importing, appear to be either ignored or unenforced.”
‘Obvious’ risks for animals and humans
The market for donkey skin has boomed in recent years, with whole villages in Africa being wiped clean of the animals. Much of the killing happens in countries like Kenya, Nigeria and Ghana, where the animals are slaughtered and skinned in horrific conditions.
The skins are then shipped to China, Hong Kong, Thailand and Vietnam before being turned into traditional remedies. “Dried and salted” skins are advertised for £680 a ton on the Chinese online retail giant Alibaba.
Testing carried out by researchers on 108 donkey skin samples from an abattoir in Kenya found 88 of them to be carrying Staphylococcus aureus bacteria, the leading cause of skin infections such as abscesses and boils.
The study said that 44 samples were positive for an antibiotic resistant strain of the germ, and three of the samples contained Panton-Valentine leukocidin, a cytotoxin known to cause invasive necrotising disease in humans.
Researchers say there is a high risk of skins becoming “contaminated with disease-causing agents” due to the mass scale of the trade, the unhygienic slaughtering of donkeys and the disparate way in which their skins are shipped and transported.
They argue that this poses a major biosecurity risk for countries receiving the skins because “diseases that are endemic in source countries may not be present at all in transit or destination countries, leading to potential outbreaks of diseases in local, naïve equine populations”.
Dr Faith Burden, executive director of equine operations at The Donkey Sanctuary, said: “The findings throughout the report are shocking, although not altogether unsurprising – the disease risks for animals and humans are obvious, with poor hygiene at all stages of the trade.
“The lack of traceability and basic biosecurity should alarm anyone involved in the trade and puts people and animals in general at significant risk.
“The skins tested were from one slaughterhouse sourced on one day – I am sure that skins from other sources and in other countries and continents, if tested, could indicate the presence of other important pathogens such as glanders, equine influenza and African swine fever.”
The findings will be presented at the African Union-IBAR: Pan-African Donkey Conference in Tanzania in December.
