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issn 0856 - 9135

Issue No. 0888

December 12 - 18, 2015
Front page 3

Bush meat feared source of deadly diseases

By Arusha Times Correspondent
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Bush meat, widely used as a source of protein, can be a source of deadly pathogens from wild animals to humans.

Now the Nelson Mandela University and the US Centre for Disease Control have entered into a project on how to stop the transmission of diseases to humans from the wild animals.

"We are all aware that Africa is just recovering from a very scary outbreak of Ebola, which was probably derived from bats", said Prof Burton Mwamila, the vice chancellor of the Arusha-based university during the official launch of the Bushmeat project with a host of partners in Arusha recently.

He said there were a range of other potential infections that can spill over from wildlife to humans and cause problems for the health and wellbeing of people.

Under the project, the Nelson Mandela African Institute of Science and Technology (NM-AIST) as the Nelson Mandela University is known, will be granted Sh. 5 billion to undertake a comprehensive study under which wild animal meat can transmit diseases to human beings.

The grant is from the Cooperative Biological Engagement Programme of the US Defence Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) and will define the role of wild animal meat as vehicles from transmitting important zoonotic pathogens to humans.

The project will focus on surveillance of especially dangerous pathogens, including anthrax, 'Brucella', "Coxiella' and the Ebola, Marburg and Monkeypox viruses whose viruses in bushmeat in Tanzania, local experts, say remain unknown.

Prof. Mwamwila said although the engagement with the US partners was new, the university had a programme under its Life Sciences Research which focused on the interaction between diseases among people and wildlife.

"Our objective now is to build both capacity and capability in eastern Africa to understand and identify emerging issues of diseases. We are training the future generations who can identify the best means of intervention", he said.

Local partners in the project include the Tanzania National Parks (Tanapa), Tanzania Wildlife Research Institutie (Tawiri) and the ministries of Livestock Development and Fisheries and Health and Social Services through their respective departments dealing with veterinary services and public health respectively.

Other partners include the Bill & Melinda Gates which has provided the funds, the Frankfurt Zoological Society, the Penn State University in the US and the Nairobi-based International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), among others.

Veterinary investigators in the project from all these institutions will map the distribution of pathogens in bush meat from different geographical and ecological regions of Tanzania using powerful molecular diagnostics assays and genomics-based tools, said the officials at the project launch event.

Bushmeat is widely harvested source of animal protein in Tanzania and many parts of Africa but is a potential source of dangerous diseases as is well evidenced by the recent outbreaks of Ebola that caused considerable loss of human lives and economic impacts in West Africa.

According to a wildlife veterinarian at Tawiri Dr. Ernest E. Mjingo the research program will help strengthen Tanzania's infectious disease research and disease surveillance capabilities, and ensure sustainable impact by providing a rational basis for defining the public health risk associated with bushmeat harvesting, trade, and consumption in Tanzania.

The project will work to improve the knowledge and health of the people of Tanzania and throughout east and central Africa.

He decried the high level hunting of wild animals for meat and said most of the killings were done illegally by people not licensed to fell down the beasts or licensed to sell bushmeat.

According to Tawiri's Director of Research Dr. Julius Keyyu,approximately 60 per cent of existing human
pathogens and over 75 per cent of those that have appeared during the past two decades can be traced back to animals, with proven link to wildlife.

and of course all that meat hanging from trees with flies etc all over it doesn't have any effect. oh well another study down - at least they may have cured the common cold

Simple, stop eating dead bats and monkeys that you find along the road. And maybe learn how to use soap and water more than once a month.

If bush meat were deadly, we wouldn't have survived as a species. Some of us are just a little more careful and choosy than others. Darwin had some ideas along these lines...

Probably has more to do with food handling practices than just what type of meat.

Sun dried meat that is not cooked would be much more likely to pass disease.

That would be my experiences over there anyhow.

Not much different then our fast food places aka Chipotle, Jack in the Box etc.
Plenty people died from those.
Not much different then open meat markets throughout Europe, Asia, Americas ...
And they spend money on studies for that?
Gimme the cash and I'll tell you- hygiene/water and refrigeration.

Food handling is clearly an issue, but I think one of the main problems is eating primates, who carry diseases that are easily transferable to these primates -- Us!.

As to food handling, on one hunt at the beginning of the rains, we bundled up bags and bags of half dried meat. Due to the rains, it wouldn't dry, the roads were getting bad and we were shot out, so we bagged it up and went home. I was staying with the PH and the guys were camping in the lawn making repairs on the vehicles and trying to finish drying the meat. They spread it out on plastic tarps on the lawn and shook out the maggots before hanging it again to dry.

Tumbu and ox tail soup. Why don't we get e-coli? Really can't answer that, but we don't.

So I think food handling is less of an issue than type of meat. My personal opinion.

In all my years living in TZ I just cannot remember of one instance where someone lost their life as a result of bush-meat poisoning; sure someone may have ended up with a severe gut-ache and a solemn dose of diarrhoea, but you could also get that in a 5 star restaurant for 20 times the price.

The use of the word "bush-meat" is somewhat too generic and should instead be confined to those species of animals known to transmit deadly diseases. Anthrax infection is not limited to game and will infect domestic animals just as well, in Africa and any other part of the globe.

The main culprits responsible for the transmission of killer diseases in humans through contact or consumption of their flesh are bats, rodents and primates; hardly what I would term as "bush-meat" or the commonly consumed commercial species of wildlife except for the inhabitants of some remote village in dark Africa who consider them as delicacies.

I don't know how the researchers (or those responsible for funding the study) feel about hunting, but I would not be surprised if lurking below the surface for some of them would be the hope they could prove eating any meat, but especially meat from hunted animals, caused all sorts of diseases.

Bill Quimby