African Fatalism

[Sally Furniss]

W.Africans chew hedgehogs as bird flu bites
12 May 2006 10:44:29 GMT
Source: Reuters
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By Loucoumane Coulibaly

ABIDJAN, May 12 (Reuters) - Smoked antelope, hedgehog and bush rat sales at Madeleine Aka's Abidjan market stall have never been so brisk.

"There is a huge demand for bush meat ever since the government said there was bird flu in Abidjan," said Aka, sitting on a stool in a muddy market place in the populous Yopougon district of Ivory Coast's main city.

Last week, veterinary authorities confirmed Ivory Coast had the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, which has killed more than 100 people around the world since 2003.

So far West Africa has no confirmed human infections, though across the continent five Egyptians have died from bird flu.

And Djibouti said on Thursday a 2-year-old girl had caught H5N1 in sub-Saharan Africa's first human case, as it became Africa's seventh country to confirm the presence of the virus.

World Health Organisation officials fear that in West Africa human cases may have simply gone undetected due to inadequate health services.

Antelope, snails and agouti -- rabbit-sized rodents also called bush rats or grasscutters -- have long been enjoyed as delicacies in Ivory Coast and nearby countries. But bush meat traders say demand has soared since the government started culling chickens and banned poultry sales in much of Abidjan.

"Mushroom consumption has also increased," Aka said. "Customers ask for them because they are cheaper than meat. I'm selling nearly 8,000 CFA francs ($16) of mushrooms a day now. A few months ago I was selling 1,500 to 2,000 CFA francs a day."

Nutritionists say mushrooms are rich in essential amino acids, making them a good substitute for chicken meat and eggs, which are important dietary components for many Africans.

Traders and shoppers say some other alternatives have become more difficult to come by for the average household as demand for other meat and fish increases across the region, even in countries which have so far escaped the virus' spread.

"Previously I could easily feed my family fish for 1,500 CFA francs. But now it is difficult, even for 2,500 CFA," said Khadjidja, a mother of five shopping in N'Djamena in landlocked Chad, which consumes a lot of fish from Lake Chad.

Residents in other countries say prices for fish and beef have shot up due to bird flu. As far south as Gabon in central Africa, the price of meat has surged by a third to $2 per kg, according to the state statistics body.

Demand for chicken has plummeted.

"A few months ago we were slitting the throats of 3,000 chickens a month. Now we're hardly doing 1,000, and all because of this bird flu which has not even arrived in Chad," said Abdelaziz, who manages an eatery called "The Youngsters' Place".

"AFRICAN FATALISM"

Some have not been scared off chicken and eggs, but have become more careful about their eating habits.

"I'm still eating them, but I make sure they are well cooked," said Joel Kuegan, a radio presenter in Benin. The WHO says poultry is safe to eat if thoroughly cooked to at least 70 degrees Celsius (158 Fahrenheit).

"Even when I buy cooked eggs or grilled chicken in town, I cook it again at home," Kuegan said.

But for many Africans bird flu is just another threat to precarious life eked out on the continent amid widespread poverty, hunger and a myriad of diseases.

"There is a kind of obsession about bird flu, but some people are still eating chicken, saying that only God can end a man's life on earth. That's African fatalism," said Chadian sociologist Beosso Djerabe.

Nigerian street trader Benjamin Ajayi said he, like many Africans, could hardly afford chicken.

"But bird flu or not, if I get chicken even now, I will gladly eat it," he said. ($1=513.0 Cfa Franc) (Additional reporting by Betel Miarom, Tume Ahemba, Abdoulaye Massalatchi, Orla Ryan, Paawana Abalo, John Zodzi and Antoine Lawson)

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L12757091.htm

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: African Fatalism

Eating "bush meat" is spreading new forms of HIV and other diseases.

The real problem is the poverty that drives people to eat unsafe protein.

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6239

Bush-meat trade breeds new HIV

• 09:00 09 August 2004
• Exclusive from New Scientist

The HIV virus has jumped from primates to people on at least seven separate occasions in recent history, not twice as is commonly thought.
And people in Cameroon are showing up with symptoms of HIV, but are testing negative for both the virus and its primate equivalent SIV, the virus from which HIV is thought to have evolved. That suggests that new strains of an HIV-like virus are circulating in wild animals and infecting people who eat them, sparking fears that such strains could fuel an already disastrous global HIV pandemic.

The warnings come from experts who gathered this week for the annual meeting of the Society for Conservation Biology at Columbia University, New York. They say that deforestation and the trade in bush meat are creating the ideal conditions for new diseases to emerge, as people have ever closer contact with exotic animals that harbour novel pathogens.
The conference reports follow the discovery earlier in 2004 that simian foamy virus, another disease that infects monkeys, has been found in bush-meat hunters and three different species of primates. As yet, it has not caused ill-effects, but it could mutate into something more insidious.
"Basically, this is a virus looking for a disease," says William Karesh, director of the Wildlife Conservation Society's field veterinary programme.
Small game

Despite those concerns, we still do not have a clear idea of how many wild animals are killed and eaten, David Wilkie, co-chair of the Bushmeat Crisis Task Force (BCTF), told the conference. He has carried out the first-ever survey of daily bush-meat consumption by rural communities in Gabon.
Over two years, he documented a flourishing, but previously unrecognised, informal trade in bush meat, where rural communities hunted and ate small game, having already caught most available primates. He thinks official studies of bush meat sold in markets account for only 40 per cent of the total bush meat eaten in the country.

"In the Congo basin alone, between one and five million metric tonnes of bush meat was consumed last year," says Heather Eves, head of the BCTF, a non-governmental organisation that monitors the trade.
And the dangers of eating such animals are real. The BCTF points out that SIV infection has now been reported in 26 different species of African nonhuman primates, many of which are hunted and sold as food.
Wake-up call

The bush-meat trade is not the only way new diseases could jump into humans. The trade in wildlife, both for agriculture and as pets, is a major global business estimated to be worth billions of dollars. In 2002 alone, for instance, over 38,000 mammals, 365,000 birds, two million reptiles, 49 million amphibians, and 216 million fish were imported into the US.

In 2003, monkeypox jumped from pet prairie dogs to their human masters. That "was just a gentle wake-up call," says Tonie Rocke, an epidemiologist with the US Geological Survey. Previously the disease had only been known to infect humans after bush-meat hunters ate red colobus monkeys.

The trade in exotic farmed meat also appears to have sparked an unusual outbreak of a common human parasite called Trichinella. In 2004, a farmed crocodile in Papua New Guinea was discovered with Trichinella, which was only thought to infect mammals, after being fed wild pig meat (Emerging Infectious Diseases, vol 10, p 1507).

In 1999, another farmed crocodile in Zimbabwe was similarly infected. "There is a strong chance that infected crocodiles may be in other countries, and could infect humans who eat them," says Edoardo Pozio, a parasitologist at Rome's institute of public health. People in Papua New Guinea who eat crocodile meat have already been found to have the parasite, which can cause fever, rashes, and respiratory and neurological problems in humans.

Rocke says there are few safeguards to prevent the spread of diseases through the wildlife trade, and is calling for stricter import and quarantine restrictions.

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[Sally Furniss]

Re: African Fatalism

Meat doesn't need to come from a wild animal to be dangerous.
A few examples are:

Pig-Trichinella spiralis
Sheep-Hydatids,
Beef-mad cow, TB
Deer-Toxoplasmosis, TB

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: African Fatalism

I believe the point of the article is emerging diseases, as distinguished from the well-known dangerous ones you listed.

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[Sally Furniss]

Re: African Fatalism

It was ment as a reminder that all meat can be dangerous and should be cooked properly

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: African Fatalism

Good reminder. Here some people assume the wild meat (moose, caribou, bear, etc.) is safe, but it actually needs thorough cooking.

To go back to your original post....I read about ?Nigeria, that chickens had recently become widespread as an alternative source of protein for the poor. I wonder if they will also return to bush-meat.

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