Ebola Leaves Meat Market Women Furious

Ebola Leaves Meat Market Women Furious

The deadly Ebola Epidemic is reported to have entered the Liberian territory , which is dog meat central, after killing more than eighty persons in neighbouring Guinea. Market women selling bushmeat are furious because the Liberian government issued a statement for people to lay off eating dried bush meat for a while.

The women are angry because the government’s announcements is costing them customers and they want the government to shut up. Ebola can be transmitted to humans from eating infected bushmeat, which act as carrier of the deadly virus.

To date, health warnings have focused on dry bushmeat, however, infected dog meat is a very serious health situation that is not to be taken lightly.

After selling meat for fifteen years, Liberian lady Ma Hawa, bush meat dealer at Monrovia’s Waterside Market, told FPA that even during the deadly civil war when food was scarce, Liberians were not exterminated adding that Ebola will not wipe out the entire country.

“They said the sickness came from Guinea and people in Guinea do not eat dry meat so they just trying to spoil our business,” said Ma Tenneh Kamara,

“During the war, they were eating human beings, that one na [not] make them sick, that now they say that meat making people sick. They are spoiling our business and it is our living. The people who are eating dog meat, what they will say about them? They are just complaining about dry meat, people eating itchy dog, it is not killing them. They know how far the sickness coming from before they [are] lying on [about] meat.“

Ma Yassah, another woman dealing in the favorite food aid that the Ebola epidemic is taking away a vital part of the Liberian way of life-its food because without bush meat some dishes are not worth cooking or eating.

Liberia’s Health Minister Dr. Walter Gwenigale on Monday issued a warning to Liberians to desist from eating bush meat for now and went on to say that eating of bush meat or having sex during the epidemic would be a bad idea, something that was also buttressed by the World Health Organization (WHO) Country Director, Dr. Nestor Ndayimirije.

“I want to mention one point which is critical. The public needs to know that even if they [the hunter] say that they have killed that animal, it may be sick. It may be in the incubation period,” said Dr. Gwenigale (end of article.)

The dog meat trade in Liberia uses many dogs sold to traders from dog snatchers. If a stray dog eats an infected bushmeat animal, the dog becomes infected with Ebola as well. If a dog trader then catches the infected stray dog and unknowingly sells it to a dog trader for human consumption, an Ebola infected dog becomes a method of spreading Ebola and causing human deaths.

Michele Brown