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| A woman in Ivory Coast dries bush meat near a road in March. Photo: Reuters |
Abby Phillip
To the foreign eye, it looks like a flattened, blackened lump of unidentifiable animal parts. To many Africans, however, bush meat - the cooked, dried or smoked remains of a host of wild animals, from rats and bats to monkeys - is not only the food of their forefathers, it is life-sustaining protein where nutrition is scarce.
And as it has been during past Ebola outbreaks, bush meat is once again suspected to have been the bridge that caused the deadly disease to go from the animal world to the human one. All it takes is a single transmission event from animal to human - handling an uncooked bat with the virus, for example - to create an epidemic. Human-to-human contact then becomes the primary source of infection.
"If you know that the Ebola virus is introduced in one area, it's probably an extra good time to stop eating bush meat," said Daniel Bausch, an associate professor of tropical medicine at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.
What is bush meat? It varies. It can be a chimpanzee, gorilla or monkey. It could also be a rat, deer or fruit bat. The animals come from the wild and are captured and sold for sustenance where other sources of protein from domesticated animals are scarce or prohibitively expensive.
West Africans say they have been eating bush meat for longer than anyone can remember. And even where it is outlawed and frowned upon by conservationists who decry the killing of protected primates and other animals, you can still find it readily available in markets and on street corners.
"Life is not easy here in the village," Guinean Sâa Fela Léno told the Guardian. Authorities and aid groups "want to ban our traditions that we have observed for generations. Animal husbandry is not widespread here because bush meat is easily available. Banning bush meat means a new way of life, Read more
To the foreign eye, it looks like a flattened, blackened lump of unidentifiable animal parts. To many Africans, however, bush meat - the cooked, dried or smoked remains of a host of wild animals, from rats and bats to monkeys - is not only the food of their forefathers, it is life-sustaining protein where nutrition is scarce.
And as it has been during past Ebola outbreaks, bush meat is once again suspected to have been the bridge that caused the deadly disease to go from the animal world to the human one. All it takes is a single transmission event from animal to human - handling an uncooked bat with the virus, for example - to create an epidemic. Human-to-human contact then becomes the primary source of infection.
"If you know that the Ebola virus is introduced in one area, it's probably an extra good time to stop eating bush meat," said Daniel Bausch, an associate professor of tropical medicine at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.
What is bush meat? It varies. It can be a chimpanzee, gorilla or monkey. It could also be a rat, deer or fruit bat. The animals come from the wild and are captured and sold for sustenance where other sources of protein from domesticated animals are scarce or prohibitively expensive.
West Africans say they have been eating bush meat for longer than anyone can remember. And even where it is outlawed and frowned upon by conservationists who decry the killing of protected primates and other animals, you can still find it readily available in markets and on street corners.
"Life is not easy here in the village," Guinean Sâa Fela Léno told the Guardian. Authorities and aid groups "want to ban our traditions that we have observed for generations. Animal husbandry is not widespread here because bush meat is easily available. Banning bush meat means a new way of life, Read more
