Experts Link Congo’s Ebola Surge to Consumption of Wild Animals

Kinshasa: Bushmeat vendors at the sprawling Masina Market in Congo’s capital do not always openly display their wares. Customers should ask about whatever they’re looking for, whether it’s a giant swamp rodent or severed parts of an antelope.

Others occasionally sell outdoors, like the women who preside over impossibly large, writhing baskets of caterpillars at the market in Kinshasa.

For many in the Congo and elsewhere in Central and West Africa, bushmeat is a craving and an important part of the cultural landscape. Even a disease as punishing as Ebola, which is now ravaging a remote part of eastern Congo, has failed to halt demand for bushmeat in the Congo Basin, a vast forested ecosystem sometimes called the Earth’s second lung.

The Congo Basin is rich in wildlife of all kinds, from great apes to snakes hunted for their meat. One consequence of this for local people is exposure to zoonotic diseases such as Ebola.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that although Ebola is not usually spread through food, cases in Africa have been linked to the hunting, slaughtering and processing of infected animals.

Dr. from the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “When the human, animal and environment interface occurs, we often encounter such epidemics,” said Tolbert Geewleh Nyenswah. “That’s why a single health approach is important in combating virus outbreaks, because we’re still interacting with bats, our hunters are still killing monkeys, and we’re still close to the environment.”

Link between bushmeat and Ebola The Congolese government has confirmed more than 1,000 suspected cases, with at least 220 deaths, since declaring an Ebola epidemic on May 15. The virus appears to have gone undetected for weeks, and the World Health Organization suspects it is much larger than reported.

Named after a tributary of the Congo River, Ebola was first discovered in 1976 in simultaneous outbreaks in Congo and present-day South Sudan. The outbreak is believed to have started when the virus spread from an infected animal, such as a fruit bat, to humans. Experts say these cross-species infections often occur when people come into contact with and eat bushmeat.

However, microbiologist Dr., who advises the Uganda Ministry of Health on epidemic diseases. Misaki Wayengera said that because Ebola outbreaks have occasionally occurred in communities that regularly consume bushmeat, some people “do not believe in the connection” and others are “completely ignorant” about the health threat of eating bushmeat.

“It’s very difficult to change some of these core practices,” he said.

Local people have paid a heavy price for the sporadic outbreaks of Ebola, whose bloody symptoms have terrorized entire villages and led many to believe they were under an evil spell.

The Ebola virus is responsible for 17 outbreaks in Congo and many more elsewhere in the region. The deadliest outbreak in West Africa, between 2014 and 2016, infected an estimated 28,000 people and killed more than 11,300.

Spread of Ebola from animals to humans is rare, but “the consequences are still catastrophic,” according to the Food and Agriculture Organization, which examined the risk of Ebola from eating and processing bushmeat after the outbreak in West Africa.

Once Ebola is infected with a person, the virus spreads through close contact with body fluids such as sweat, blood, feces, or vomit from sick or deceased patients. Healthcare workers who do not have adequate protective equipment are seen as highly vulnerable.

The current outbreak in eastern Congo is caused by Bundibugyo virus, a rare strain of Ebola for which there is no approved drug or vaccine.

The outbreak is occurring in a region of Congo that faces armed violence from rebel groups and has displaced many people fleeing the violence.

Need for education While Congolese authorities have banned the hunting of endangered wildlife, including great apes that have been pushed to the brink of extinction by poachers, there is no blanket ban on wildlife trade and illegal hunting of totemic creatures such as bonobos continues.

Wild meat is the primary source of many animal proteins in and around the Congo Basin. According to the International Forestry Research Center, the annual bushmeat extraction from the Congo Basin is estimated at 4.5 million tonnes.

Viande de brousse, known as wild meat in French, is a popular dish even served in trendy restaurants. This indicates that pressure on the Congo Basin’s dwindling resources is intensifying. Despite ongoing biodiversity losses, the Congo Basin remains the world’s largest carbon sink, surpassing the Amazon in its ability to capture and store carbon.

Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka, founder of the Uganda-based group Prevention through Public Health, said public health campaigners should step up education campaigns about how Ebola started and how it spread through communities facing recurring outbreaks.

Kalema-Zikusoka said people need to be told that “eating meat from an unknown source or a dead animal is a no-no.” “It’s a very cultural thing.”

Some fruit bats are believed to be natural hosts of the viruses that cause Ebola, according to the World Health Organization. However, bats are known to be a delicacy in many parts of Central and West Africa. Roasted fruit bat soup and parts of a wide variety of monkeys are very popular.

Recently, before the latest Ebola outbreak, traders in Kinshasa’s Masina Market said they were selling antelope, rodent and snake meat from the Congo Basin.

They said they long ago stopped selling monkey meat, a possible reservoir of the Ebola virus.

The seller, Guyva Mputu, was selling pythons whose frozen meat began to evaporate in humid weather.

Another, Charles Ntanga, used a fly rod to ward off flies that landed on the putrid carcass of a giant rodent, costing about $17 a kilogram. Ntanga said he finds customers from all walks of life.

“We sell wild meat,” he said. “We make our living doing this.”