By Adama Bakayoko
16 hours ago
Bouaké (Ivory Coast)
(AFP) - West Africa's first outbreak of Ebola fever is bad news for
gourmets in Ivory Coast, but brings respite from the hunter to species
sought out for tasty meat but feared to carry the disease.
Bushmeat is known to
be a vector of Ebola, the alarming haemorrhagic fever that has claimed
at least 122 lives in Guinea, according to a UN World Health
Organisation toll on April 17. Liberia, meanwhile, reports 13 deaths.
Hunters
and restaurant owners in the central Ivorian town of Bouake are upset
that clients have begun to steer clear of the strong taste of the
agouti, a beast with a long snout and brown fur that can reach half a
metre (1.6 feet) in length.
Last
week, the minister's recommendation was still going unheeded or ignored
by some traders and hunters in Bouake's main bushmeat market. One
hunter openly carried a dead rodent.
Emile,
a customer in his 40s who seemed slightly tipsy, asked for "Ebola
meat", meaning braised agouti. "Ebola can't survive alcohol or hot
water," claimed the scarred Rigobeli, who had just eaten a large meal.
But such scenes are swiftly
becoming a thing of the past. An official ban on bushmeat -- including
antelopes, chimpanzees and porcupines as well as agoutis -- has been
enforced and a week later, the Bouake market was empty.
State
officials from the water and forestry service and in the health sector
are patrolling the whole country in search of offenders. They recently
burned 200 kilos (440 pounds) of smoked game found in the capital
Yamoussoukro.
The stakes are
high. Wild animals are carriers of often deadly haemorrhagic fevers,
including Ebola for which there is no medical cure. The fruit bat has
been singled out as a likely vector in the west African outbreak.
People
subsequently contaminate each other by direct contact with blood,
bodily fluids and the tissue of infected patients, including dead ones
during their burial.
The
current strain of Ebola kills 90 percent of its victims and suspect
cases have been reported in Sierra Leone and Mali, while Senegal has
closed its border with Guinea.
Fear of the disease runs
high in Ivory Coast, another of Guinea's neighbours, though no cases
have yet been reported. People have begun to listen to official warnings
and instructions.
- Secret signs -
"We
like agouti very much, but we would rather save our lives," said
Ernest, a man in his 30s. "As an Ivorian, I appreciate this meat. But
with the risk of Ebola, I've changed, I don't eat any more," Kassoum
agreed.
Not everybody plays by the rules. A restaurant owner, who
asked to remain anonymous, said she had established a code with some of
her most loyal customers, hardened eaters of bushmeat."When they come in, those who can't do without agouti give me a signal in secret and I make sure that other customers believe I am serving them beef," she explained.
Adele Coulibaly, 48, whose
restaurant used to specialise in game, has converted to beef and fish,
but in the process she has lost customers and income. She is sceptical
about the government's recommendations.
"When
I was born, my mother was in this line of work and there was never any
disease," she said. "Bushmeat has nothing to do with Ebola."
On
the other hand, the restrictions imposed by the Ebola outbreak could
help wildlife to recover. A ban of game hunting has been in force since
1974, but remained largely ineffective because of the popularity of the
meat.
Agoutis, antelopes,
chimpanzees, porcupines and other species are all in danger of
extinction in Ivory Coast, but today they have at least a few weeks'
respite.
Ironically, "Ebola is
a good thing for the preservation of wildlife," said Colonel Jerome
Ake, the Yamoussoukro regional director for water and forestry.
A
break in hunting will also benefit the natural environment, since
hunters flush out game by starting large brush fires, which they are not
always able to keep under control.
In
the past 10 years, such blazes have killed 120 people and destroyed
more than 5,000 square kilometres (1,900 square miles) of forest and
other land, a region twice the size of Luxembourg. But in these days of
Ebola, fewer fires are likely to be started.
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