Meghalaya Minister James Sangma spreads awareness of World Pangolin Day

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SHILLONG:

Meghalaya Environment and Forest Minister James Sangma, on Saturday, took to his official Twitter handle on the occasion of the 10th World Pangolin Day.

“World Pangolin Day is celebrated to draw as much attention to pangolins as possible & the plight they face. On this tenth annual World Pangolin Day, I urge everyone to take a pledge in protecting these endangered species & reduce the threats faced by them,” Sangma tweeted.

World Pangolin Day aims to raise awareness about these unique mammals as they are also the most trafficked mammals in the illegal wildlife trade.

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The name pangolin comes from the Malay word “pengguling”, which translates to “something that rolls up.”

Most recently, some studies suggest that the COVID-19 virus passes through these mammals to humans.

The nucleic acid sequence of a specific receptor-binding domain of the spike protein belonging to coronaviruses taken from pangolins was found to be a 99 per cent match with SARS coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus which causes COVID-19 and is responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic.

(Edited by Ladiangti Rani)

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