Via The Guardian: Ebola risk unheeded as Guinea's villagers keep on eating fruit bats. Excerpt:
Medical teams struggling to curb Ebola in west Africa have been discouraging bush meat consumption, believed to have caused the outbreak, but some rural communities dependent on the meat for protein are determined to continue their traditional hunting practices.
While meat from wild animals such as fruit bats, rodents and forest antelopes has largely disappeared from market stalls in main towns such as Guéckédou in southern Guinea – the epicentre of the disease, and the capital Conakry following campaigns to avoid contamination, it is still being eaten in remote villages despite the risks.
"Life is not easy here in the village. They [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, which is unrealistic," said Sâa Fela Léno, who lives in Nongoha village in Guéckédou.
The disease, which erupted in Guinea's southern forest region and was diagnosed in March as Ebola, is west Africa's first outbreak, and the worst known to date globally with more than 700 deaths. Infections continue to spread in Guinea and neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Poor knowledge and superstition especially in rural communities, as well as cross-border movement, a poor public health infrastructure and other epidemiological causes have contributed to its spread.
The immediate concern is to halt human-to-human transmission. Discouraging bush meat consumption and introducing livestock as an alternative to hunting are part of long-term solutions against the risks of contracting Ebola from the wild, said Juan Lubroth, chief veterinary officer with the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in Rome.
"We recognise the importance that bush meat has to quality nutrition that you may not get from only crop-based diets. We do not say that you should stop wild meat … but can we replace the need to go to the forest and hunt wildlife with having a source of livestock and livelihood that can be safer?" Lubroth said.
"Can we have a more development agenda where we could have poultry production, sheep, goats, pigs … so that there is no undue encroachment into the forest for hunting?"