Posted on 10/18/2014 6:47:14 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Bushmeat is believed to be the origin of the current Ebola outbreak. The first victim's family hunted bats, which carry the virus. Could the practice of eating bushmeat, which is popular across Africa, be responsible for the current crisis?
The origin has been traced to a two-year-old child from the village of Gueckedou in south-eastern Guinea, an area where batmeat is frequently hunted and eaten.
The infant, dubbed Child Zero, died on 6 December 2013. The child's family stated they had hunted two species of bat which carry the Ebola virus.
Bushmeat or wild animal meat covers any animal that is killed for consumption, principally chimpanzees, gorillas, fruit bats and monkeys. It can even include porcupines, rats and snakes.
In some remote areas it is a necessary source of food - in others it has become a delicacy.
In Africa's Congo Basin, people eat an estimated five million tonnes of bushmeat per year, according to the Centre of International Forestry Research....
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
How about cows? They can raise and eat alot of Big Macs.
I suddenly lost my appetite.
keyboard spew alert
“You can whip our milk but you can’t beat our meat!”
Bush & Sons Butchers and ... dairy products.
Ebola is Bushmeat’s Revenge.
The disease is believed to be endemic to Pteropodidae, Old World Fruit bats. These don’t eat mosquitos, which aren’t vectors. These communal bats are old species carrying some nasty viruses. It does not kill them outright. Monkeys, apes and people are not natural carriers of the virus. It’s burns through us, killing people quickly. The consumption of bat meat must end.
You are a cunning linguist.
Savages. Chimps? Disgusting. If they want to live like this, fine, but keep them out of America.
If Peter had his way, Christians would be obliged to follow them. Btw, there has never been a recall of any kind of kosher meat in the US.
I think a hateful, incendiary, video is behind this Ebola outbreak, and that no one is more outraged than President O-Blowa, who will pivot and focus like a laser on it (after he gets in a few more rounds of golf).
Bush meat properly named by a democrate, STAY OUT THE BUSHES!
As far as I know fruit bats eat fruit rather than bugs.
Apes and monkeys carry a form of herpes that causes almost no discomfort for the monkeys but is highly lethal to humans (68% case fatality rate). Luckily, we do not catch this virus easily.
Most emerging pathogens are zoonoses. They circulate in their animal host, often without causing much problem at all, but then get into humans and result in severe, often fatal, disease.
The species (3 different ones) of bats in question are migratory fruit-eating bats. Apparently, they are considered a delicacy there. They have been known to carry the disease, as well as Marburg (Ebola's nastier cousin) and the disease may be contracted either by having cuts on the hands while preparing the animals or eating the undercooked meat. I would presume the bats excrete the virus also, so contaminated fruit might be a problem as well.
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