BUSHMEAT TRADE - CAMEROON: DISEASE TRANSMISSION RISK
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ProMED-mail is a program of the
International Society for Infectious Diseases
<http://www.isid.org>

Date: Fri 25 May 2012
Source: The Independent [abbreviated & edited]
<http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/african-monkey-meat-that-could-be-behind-the-next-hiv-7786152.html>


Deep in the rainforest of south-east Cameroon, the voices of the men
rang through the trees: "Where are the white people?" they shouted.
The men, who begin to surround us, are poachers, who make their money
from the illegal slaughter of gorillas and chimpanzees. They disperse
but make it known that they are not keen for their activities to be
reported; the trade they ply could not only wipe out critically
endangered species but, scientists are now warning, could also create
the next pandemic of a deadly virus in humans.

80 per cent of the meat eaten in Cameroon is killed in the wild and is
known as "bushmeat." The nation's favoured dishes are gorilla,
chimpanzee or monkey because of their succulent and tender flesh.
According to one estimate, up to 3000 gorillas are slaughtered in
southern Cameroon every year to supply an illicit but pervasive
commercial demand for ape meat . Frankie, a poacher in the southern
Dja Wildlife reserve who gave a fake name, said he is involved in the
trade because he can earn good money from it, charging around GBP 60
[USD 94] per adult gorilla killed. "I have to make a living," he said.
"Women come from the market and order a gorilla or a chimp, and I go
and kill them."

Cameroon's south-eastern rainforests are also home to the Baka,
traditional forest hunters who have the legal right to hunt wild
animals, with the exception of great apes. Felix Biango, a Baka elder,
said the group used to hunt gorilla every few weeks to feed his
village, Ayene, but has stopped since Cameroon outlawed the practice
10 years ago. However, he says that every week, 3 or 4 people come
from the cities to ask the group to help them to hunt wild animals,
such as gorillas and chimpanzees.

While the Baka no longer hunt primates for themselves, Mr Biango says
that they still kill gorillas for the commercial trade and will eat
the meat if they find the animals already dead. Though Cameroonians
have eaten primate meat for years, recent health scares have begun to
raise fears about the safety of the meat. "In the village of
Bakaklion, our brothers found a dead gorilla in the forest," Mr Biango
said. "They took it back to the village and ate the meat. Almost
immediately, everyone died, 25 men, women and children, the only
person who didn't was a woman who didn't eat the meat."

Babila Tafon, head vet at the primate sanctuary Ape Action Africa
(AAA), in Mefou, just outside the capital Yaounde, believes the
incident that Biango describes could have been caused by an outbreak
of Ebola, but cannot be sure because no tests were carried out. AAA
now cares for 22 gorillas and more than 100 chimps, all orphans of the
bushmeat trade. 3/4ths of all new human viruses are known to come from
animals, and some scientists believe humans are particularly
susceptible to those carried by apes. The human immunodeficiency virus
(HIV) is now widely believed to have originated in chimps. Apes are
known to host other potentially deadly viruses, such as Ebola,
anthrax, yellow fever and other potential viruses yet to be
discovered.

Mr Tafon tests the blood of all apes arriving at the sanctuary. He
says he has recently detected a new virus in the apes, simian foamy
virus, which is closely related to HIV [See ProMED-mail archived
reports listed below - Mod.CP]. "A recent survey confirmed this is now
in humans, especially in some of those who are hunters and cutting up
the apes in the south-east of the country," he said. Viruses are often
transferred from ape to human through a bite, scratch or the blood of
a dead ape getting into an open wound. There is a lower risk from
eating cooked or smoked primates, but it is not completely safe.

Bushmeat is not only a concern for Cameroonians. Each year, an
estimated 11 000 tons of bushmeat is illegally smuggled in to the UK,
mainly from West Africa, and is known to include some ape meat. The
transfer of viruses from ape to humans is a primary concern for the
international virology research and referral base run by the Pasteur
Centre in Yaounde. Each week, it screens more than 500 blood samples
for all manner of viruses and alerts major international medical
research centres if it finds an unfamiliar strain. Professor Dominique
Baudon, the director of the Cameroon centre, says he is concerned that
the bushmeat trade is a major gateway for animal viruses to enter
humans worldwide, due to the export trade.

He says that the deeper poachers go in to the forest, and the more
that primates are consumed, the more exposed people become to new
unknown viruses and the more potential there is for the viruses to
mutate into potentially aggressive forms. At the Ape Action Africa
sanctuary, Rachel Hogan, who came to Cameroon from Birmingham 11 years
ago, and her team focus on the last of Cameroon's great apes. Most of
the gorillas and chimps Ms Hogan and her team look after are babies
who have witnessed the murder of their parents. She says they are
often suffering from terrible wounds and even trauma when they arrive
at the sanctuary. "They grieve just like humans," she says. "We have
had them where they will just sit rocking, grinding their teeth, and
they don't respond to anything. You have to be able to win back their
trust." The increasing number of rescued apes is putting pressure on
the sanctuary. A group of 8 gorillas in the wild, protected by one
dominant male, needs 16 square km to roam in to live comfortably. The
sanctuary says there is nowhere in the vast tropical rainforest of
Cameroon that the apes can safely be returned to the wild. "If this
continues, there might not be any wild populations of gorillas left,"
says Ms Hogan.

[Byline: Evan Williams]

--
Communicated by:
ProMED-mail Rapporteur Mary Marshall

[It is believed that AIDS, which has claimed over 30 million lives,
may have evolved in the rainforest of west central Africa perhaps as a
result of the bushmeat trade. Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is
thought to be derived from Simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) and to
have evolved into a human pathogen, although there is no direct
evidence suggesting how this occurred. So far, there has been little
evidence of transfer of other known types of virus, but transmission
of novel infectious agents is the real risk.

The Washington-based Bush Meat Crisis Task Force estimates that up to
5 million tons of wild animals are being "harvested" in the Congo
Basin every year, the equivalent of 10 million cattle. The trade was
initially driven by hunger -- it was a cheap source of food -- but has
burgeoned with increased logging of the forests and growing demand.
Now, it is international, extending the threat beyond the continent's
boundaries. However, the size of the imports is unknown, but one 2010
study estimated that 5 tons of the meat per week were being smuggled
in personal baggage via Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris,
France. Gorilla and chimpanzee meat is said to be on offer to African
communities in Hackney and Brixton at hundreds of pounds per
kilogram.