Bat Soup Blamed as Deadly Ebola Virus Spreads
By Marc Lallanilla, Assistant Editor | March 26, 2014 04:23pm ET
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 A female Gambian fruit bat.Credit: Ivan Kuzmin | Shutterstock |
An outbreak of the Ebola virus has claimed at least 63 lives in the African nation of Guinea.
To combat the spread of this deadly disease, Guinean officials have taken the unusual step of banning the consumption of bat soup, grilled bat and other local delicacies.
"We discovered the vector [infectious] agent of the Ebola virus is the bat," Remy Lamah, the country’s health minister, told Bloomberg News. "We sent messages everywhere to announce the ban. People must even avoid consumption of rats and monkeys. They are very dangerous animals." [5 Things You Should Know About Ebola]
What Is Ebola?
Ebola is a hemorrhagic virus that spreads through bodily fluids and can cause high fever, diarrhea, vomiting and internal and external bleeding. There is no vaccine or cure, and Ebola is fatal up to 90 percent of the time, according to the National Institutes of Health.
Medical experts believe that animals are the natural hosts for the Ebola virus, which has in the past been transmitted to humans via chimpanzees, gorillas and monkeys. Though bats and other mammals can harbor the virus, they may not show any symptoms of the disease.
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The Gazette
Beware of bats: Guinea issues bushmeat warning after Ebola outbreak
BY SALIOU SAMB AND ALPHONSO TOWEH
CONAKRY/MONROVIA (Reuters)
– Bushmeat – from bats to antelopes, squirrels, porcupines and monkeys –
has long held pride of place on family menus in West and Central
Africa, whether stewed, smoked or roasted.
A visit to a traditional market in the region assails the senses with a huge variety of forest game – mammal, bird and reptile carcasses smoked and partitioned and the smell of singed animal hair filling the air.
But an outbreak of the deadly Ebola fever in Guinea has rekindled concerns about the health risks of age-old African hunting and eating traditions that bring humans into close contact with wild forest animals.
The World Health Organization says about 86 suspected cases of Ebola have been reported, with 62 deaths so far. Guinean authorities put the death toll at 63.
Experts who have studied the Ebola virus from its discovery in 1976 in Democratic Republic of Congo, then Zaire, say its suspected origin – what they call the reservoir host – is forest bats. Links have also been made to the carcasses of freshly slaughtered animals consumed as bushmeat.
Bats – often served in a spicy stew called “kedjenou” – have long been a favourite in Guinea’s southeastern Forest Zone, the epicenter of the current outbreak. But sales of these and other bushmeat delicacies have now been banned by Guinean authorities fighting the Ebola outbreak.
“We visited the markets in the region and there was no more bat meat on sale,” Colonel Remy Lamah, Minister of Health, said from the area hit by the outbreak, which borders Ivory Coast, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Liberia and Sierra Leone, which have reported suspected Ebola deaths, announced similar bans on the sale of bushmeat, spreading alarm and dismay among consumers and the many who make a living from the trade.
“PEOPLE WON’T BUY OUR MEAT”
“Our people here eat monkey and bat … we have warned them about eating bushmeat,” said Tolbert G. Nyenswah, a health official in Liberia. “We have warned them about coming into contact with fresh meat. We have also warned them about eating dead animals when they don’t know what killed them.”
In Ivory Coast’s commercial hub Abidjan, signs at the Yopougon bushmeat market still offer rats, porcupine, agouti, squirrels, pangolin and bats “stewed or braised”.
“We’ve heard the announcement and we’re worried because people won’t buy our meat now,” said vendor Sophie Ouattara.
A visit to a traditional market in the region assails the senses with a huge variety of forest game – mammal, bird and reptile carcasses smoked and partitioned and the smell of singed animal hair filling the air.
But an outbreak of the deadly Ebola fever in Guinea has rekindled concerns about the health risks of age-old African hunting and eating traditions that bring humans into close contact with wild forest animals.
The World Health Organization says about 86 suspected cases of Ebola have been reported, with 62 deaths so far. Guinean authorities put the death toll at 63.
Experts who have studied the Ebola virus from its discovery in 1976 in Democratic Republic of Congo, then Zaire, say its suspected origin – what they call the reservoir host – is forest bats. Links have also been made to the carcasses of freshly slaughtered animals consumed as bushmeat.
Bats – often served in a spicy stew called “kedjenou” – have long been a favourite in Guinea’s southeastern Forest Zone, the epicenter of the current outbreak. But sales of these and other bushmeat delicacies have now been banned by Guinean authorities fighting the Ebola outbreak.
“We visited the markets in the region and there was no more bat meat on sale,” Colonel Remy Lamah, Minister of Health, said from the area hit by the outbreak, which borders Ivory Coast, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Liberia and Sierra Leone, which have reported suspected Ebola deaths, announced similar bans on the sale of bushmeat, spreading alarm and dismay among consumers and the many who make a living from the trade.
“PEOPLE WON’T BUY OUR MEAT”
“Our people here eat monkey and bat … we have warned them about eating bushmeat,” said Tolbert G. Nyenswah, a health official in Liberia. “We have warned them about coming into contact with fresh meat. We have also warned them about eating dead animals when they don’t know what killed them.”
In Ivory Coast’s commercial hub Abidjan, signs at the Yopougon bushmeat market still offer rats, porcupine, agouti, squirrels, pangolin and bats “stewed or braised”.
“We’ve heard the announcement and we’re worried because people won’t buy our meat now,” said vendor Sophie Ouattara.
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