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During the opening years of the first decade of the 21st century, `wild flavor’ restaurants flourished in many parts of China, but most particularly in Guangzhou Province.
There you could partake in all sorts of exotic dishes – often slaughtered and cooked in front of you - including dog, cat, civit, muskrat, ferret, monkey, along with a variety of snakes, reptiles, and birds.
What are commonly referred to as `bushmeat’.
For a horrific description of the conditions in these restaurants, I would direct you to an essay by Karl Taro Greenfeld called Wild Flavor which appeared in the Paris Review in 2005.
Greenfeld, you may recall, is the author of The China Syndrome: The True Story of the 21st Century's First Great Epidemic. Perhaps the most authoritative (and absolutely riveting) account of the SARS outbreak of 2003, and how it was directly linked to the practice of consuming bushmeat in China.
In the wake of the SARS outbreak China – at least for a time – cracked down on many of these `wild flavor’ establishments, although they reportedly still flourish in some parts of China.
Yesterday, the British papers were filled with stories on the importation and sale of illegal bushmeat in the UK, including reports of chimpanzee meat being sold in some restaurants.
A couple of links to articles include:
Meat from chimpanzees 'is on sale in Britain' in lucrative black market
The slaughtering of these intelligent (and often endangered) primates for food (but mostly profit) is sufficiently disturbing in its own right, but the dangers inherent in such practices are hardly trivial.
The killing, butchering, and even consumption of bushmeat have the very real potential of introducing zoonotic pathogens to humans. We saw that happen in 2003 with SARS, and it believed that this was how HIV was introduced into the human population as well.
While most people think of bushmeat hunting as something that a few indigenous tribes in Africa might do to feed their protein-starved communities, the reality is that hundreds of tons of bushmeat are butchered and exported (usually smuggled) to Europe, Asia, and North America every year.
In the summer of 2010 headlines were made when a study – published in the journal Conservation Letters looked at the amount of smuggled bushmeat that was coming into Paris's Charles de Gaulle airport over a 17 day period on flights from west and central Africa.
An Associated Press article provides the details (link & excerpt below)
Tons of Bushmeat Smuggled Into Paris, Study Finds
By MARIA CHENG and CHRISTINA OKELLO Associated Press Writers
PARIS June 17, 2010 (AP)
(EXCERPT)
Experts found 11 types of bushmeat including monkeys, large rats, crocodiles, small antelopes and pangolins, or anteaters. Almost 40 percent were listed on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
Based on what officials seized — 414 pounds (188 kilos) of bushmeat — the researchers estimated that about five tons of bushmeat gets into Paris each week.
In 2005, the CDC’s EID Journal carried a perspective article on the dangers of bushmeat hunting by Nathan D. Wolfe, Peter Daszak, A. Marm Kilpatrick, and Donald S. Burke.
Bushmeat Hunting, Deforestation, and Prediction of Zoonotic Disease
It’s an interesting article, and it describes how it may take numerous transmissions of a zoonotic pathogen to man – over a period of years or decades – before it adapts well enough to human physiology to support human-to-human transmission.
Bushmeat hunting is a common intersection between man and reservoirs of zoonotic viruses, with a strong potential for an infection to occur.
One of those zoonotic diseases of concern is monkeypox.
In recent years we’ve seen an increase in the number of outbreaks of in central and western Africa, and even a rare outbreak in the United States in 2003 when an animal distributor imported hundreds of small animals from Ghana, which in turn infected prairie dogs that were subsequently sold to the public (see MMWR Update On Monkeypox 2003)
While dubbed `monkeypox’, this less lethal cousin to smallpox is probably more commonly found in rodents than in monkeys. Both of which are often targets of bushmeat hunters.
No vaccine is available for monkeypox, but the smallpox vaccination is said to reduce the risk of infection.
Just a few of the other viruses of concern include Hendra, Nipah, Ebola, many variations of SIV (Simian immunodeficiency virus), and of course . . . Virus X.
The one we don’t know about. Yet.
For more on this we turn again to Nathan Wolfe, `The Virus Hunter’ and founder of Global Viral Forecasting Initiative (GVFI), who spends half his time in the wilds of Cameroon testing bushmeat – and hunters – looking for virus X.
I’ve written about Nathan Wolf several times over the years, including:
Nathan Wolfe And The Doomsday Strain
Nathan Wolfe: Virus Hunter
I can also highly recommend an absolutely fascinating TED Talk by Dr. Wolfe.
TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. Each year they hold a 4 day long event at Long Beach, California where 50 people are urged to give the 18-minute talk of their lives.
And believe me, this is one talk you don’t want to miss.
Video Link
While many people are understandably outraged or disgusted by the notion of bushmeat hunting, for virologists, the impact is much broader.
Three quarters of human diseases originated in other animal species, and there are undoubtedly many more out there, waiting for an opportunity to jump to a new host.
Sadly, the role of `wild flavor’ cuisine in SARS epidemic in China and the introduction of HIV to humans via the hunting of bushmeat in Africa, it would appear, are lessons we have yet to fully embrace.
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