U.S. State Secretary Mike Pompeo said the United States has called on China to permanently close its wet markets for wildlife, noting the ties between those markets and infectious diseases.

It is suspected that the new coronavirus appeared late last year in a market in the central Chinese town of Wuhan. It spread across the globe killing over 180,000 people and infecting over 2.6 million people.

“Given the strong link between illegal wildlife sold in wet markets and zoonotic diseases, the United States has called on the People’s Republic of China to permanently close its wildlife wet markets and all markets that sell illegal wildlife,” Pompeo said in a statement late on Wednesday.

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