Africa’s rhinos face new poaching threat with traditional Chinese medicine touting horn as coronavirus cure

Despite having no proven medicinal value, rhino horn is used as an ingredient in the ‘ibuprofen of TCM’, peddled on social media as Covid-19 treatment

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A white rhinoceros in Botswana. Photo: Shutterstock

Mary Holland

Published: 6:15pm, 1 Aug 2020Updated: 1:03pm, 2 Aug 2020

Rhino horn being touted as curative is nothing new. For more than 2,000 years, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has enlisted the substance as a cure-all, recommended for everything from gout to fever and even cancer. And Africa has long been the place to procure it.

But buckling under global pressure, in 1993, the Chinese government banned the domestic trade and medicinal use of rhino horn. The scientifically innocuous ingredient was largely replaced with buffalo horn, but demand continued and is now being fuelled by claims that it can be used in the treatment of a very contemporary ailment.

Most recently, the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), working to expose trade in illicit products, discovered images showing the packaging of Angong Niuhuang Wan – think of it as the ibuprofen of TCM – believed to have originated in North Korea, and advertised on WeChat by a China-based trader showing rhino horn as an ingredient.

Wildlife-rich countries such as South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Kenya and Tanzania have struggled for decades to control the poaching of pangolin scales, elephant tusks and rhino horns, often to feed demand in China and Southeast Asia. The wildlife tourism sector that has been nurtured has not only helped to curb poaching, it has grown into a US$169 billion industry employing some 24.6 million people across Africa, where it is often the only employer in those remote regions where wildlife thrives.

A TCM product called Angong Niuhuang Wan that is being advertised as a cure for Covid-19. Photo: Handout

Then came the virus. Borders closed, flights were cancelled, and tourism to Africa’s wildlife sanctuaries was put on hold. An African Union study estimates about 20 million jobs are at risk across the continent and governments stand to lose up to US$500 billion in fiscal revenue due to the impact of the coronavirus.

And whatever leaps were made in sustainable tourism, Covid-19 has ensured that poaching is returning, with a new desperate and sinister twist: African animal parts being promoted on social media, such as the Angong Niuhuang Wan on WeChat, are being advertised as a cure for Covid-19.