KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — The vendors of wild meat at the sprawling Masina Market in the Congolese capital don’t always display their goods openly. Customers must ask for whatever they're looking for, whether it is a giant swamp rodent or the severed parts of an antelope.
Others occasionally sell in the open, like the women who preside over impossibly large baskets of squirming caterpillars at the market in Kinshasa.
For many in Congo and elsewhere in Central
and West Africa wild meat is a craving and a key part of the cultural milieux. Even a disease as punishing as Ebola, currently ravaging a remote part of eastern Congo, has failed to stem demand for wild meat from the Congo Basin, an expansive forested ecosystem sometimes called Earth’s second lung.
The Congo Basin is rich in all kinds of wildlife, from great apes to serpents — both of which are hunted for their meat. One consequence for locals is exposure to zoonotic diseases such as Ebola.
Although Ebola is generally not spread by food, cases in Africa have been associated with hunting, butchering and processing meat from infected animals, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said.
“Once there is human, animal and environment interface, we have these kinds of outbreaks on a frequent level,” said Dr. Tolbert Geewleh Nyenswah of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. “And this is why one health approach in dealing with virus outbreaks is important, because we still interact with the bats, and our hunters are still killing monkeys, and we are close to the environment.”
The Congolese government has confirmed more than 1,000 suspected cases, with at least 220 deaths, since it declared an outbreak of Ebola on May 15. It appears the virus spread undetected for weeks, and the World Health Organization suspects it is much larger than what has been reported.
Ebola, named for a tributary of the Congo River, was first discovered in 1976 in simultaneous outbreaks in Congo and present-day South Sudan. Outbreak are believed to start with the virus spilling over into humans from an infected animal such as a fruit bat. These cross-species infections often happen when people handle and eat wild meat, experts say.
But since Ebola outbreaks happen only sporadically in communities that regularly eat wild meat, some people “don't believe the linkage” and others are “totally ignorant” of the health threat from eating wild meat, said Dr. Misaki Wayengera, a microbiologist who advises Uganda's Ministry of Health on epidemics.
“It is very difficult to change some of these core practices,” he said.
Locals have paid a heavy price for occasional outbreaks of Ebola, whose bloody symptoms can terrorize entire villages and cause many to believe they are under an evil spell.
The Ebola virus is responsible for 17 outbreaks in Congo and many others 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.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization — which studied the Ebola risk stemming from the eating and handling of wild meat after West Africa’s epidemic — animal-to-human spillovers of Ebola are rare, but "their consequences are nonetheless disastrous.”
Once Ebola has infected one person, the virus then spreads through close contact with sick or deceased patients’ bodily fluids, such as sweat, blood, feces or vomit. Health workers without sufficient protective gear are seen as highly vulnerable.
The current outbreak in eastern Congo is caused by the Bundibugyo virus, a rare type of Ebola that has no approved medicines or vaccines.
The outbreak is occurring in a part of Congo that also faces armed violence by rebel groups and the displacement of large numbers of people fleeing the violence.
While Congolese authorities have prohibited hunting endangered wildlife, including great apes sent to the brink of extinction by poachers, there is no blanket ban on the wildlife trade and illegal hunting persists for totemic creatures like the bonobo.
Many in and around the Congo Basin have wild meat as their primary source of animal protein. The yearly extraction rate of wild meat from the Congo Basin is estimated at 4.5 million tons, according to the Center for International Forestry Research.
Viande de brousse, as wild meat is known in French, is a popular food, even served in trendy restaurants. That's intensified pressure on the dwindling resources of the Congo Basin. Despite the ongoing biodiversity losses, the Congo Basin remains the world's largest carbon sink, surpassing the Amazon in its ability to capture and store carbon.
Public health campaigners need to step up education campaigns on how Ebola starts and is spread among communities that face recurring outbreaks, said Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka, founder of the Uganda-based Conservation Through Public Health group.
People need to be told that “eating meat from an unknown source, or a dead animal, is a no-no,” Kalema-Zikusoka said. “It’s a very cultural thing.”
Some fruit bats are believed to be natural hosts of the viruses that cause Ebola, according to the WHO. Yet bats are known to be a delicacy in many parts of Central and West Africa. The soup of a roasted fruit bat is highly sought after, as are the parts of a wide range of monkeys.
In Kinshasa’s Masina Market one recent morning, before the latest Ebola outbreak, traders said they sold antelope, rodent and snake meat sourced from the Congo Basin.
They said they long ago stopped selling the meat of monkeys, possible reservoirs of the Ebola virus.
One vendor, Guyva Mputu, was selling python, whose frozen flesh started to steam in the humid weather.
Another, Charles Ntanga, wielded a flywhisk to swat flies that settled on the rancid carcass of a giant rodent, with a kilogram going for about $17. Ntanga said he gets clients from all walks of life.
“We sell wild meat," he said. “We make our lives through this business.”
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Associated Press writer Mogomotsi Magome in Johannesburg, South Africa, contributed to this report.
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