What Eating Meat Gets You

[Guest guest]

Bush-meat trade breeds new HIV

 

19:00 04 August 04

 

Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free

issues.

 

 

The HIV virus has jumped from primates to people on at least seven

separate occasions in recent history, not twice as is commonly thought.

 

And people in Cameroon are showing up with symptoms of HIV, but are

testing negative for both the virus and its primate equivalent SIV, the

virus from which HIV is thought to have evolved. That suggests that new

strains of an HIV-like virus are circulating in wild animals and infecting

people who eat them, sparking fears that such strains could fuel an

already disastrous global HIV pandemic.

 

The warnings come from experts who gathered this week for the annual

meeting of the Society for Conservation Biology at Columbia University,

New York. They say that deforestation and the trade in bush meat are

creating the ideal conditions for new diseases to emerge, as people have

ever closer contact with exotic animals that harbour novel pathogens.

 

The conference reports follow the discovery earlier in 2004 that simian

foamy virus, another disease that infects monkeys, has been found in

bush-meat hunters and three different species of primates. As yet, it has

not caused ill-effects, but it could mutate into something more insidious.

 

" Basically, this is a virus looking for a disease, " says William Karesh,

director of the World Conservation Society's field veterinary programme.

 

 

Small game

 

Despite those concerns, we still do not have a clear idea of how many wild

animals are killed and eaten, David Wilkie, co-chair of the Bushmeat

Crisis Task Force (BCTF), told the conference. He has carried out the

first-ever survey of daily bush-meat consumption by rural communities in

Gabon.

 

Over two years, he documented a flourishing, but previously unrecognised,

informal trade in bush meat, where rural communities hunted and ate small

game, having already caught most available primates. He thinks official

studies of bush meat sold in markets account for only 40 per cent of the

total bush meat eaten in the country.

 

" In the Congo basin alone, between one and five million metric tonnes of

bush meat was consumed last year, " says Heather Eves, head of the BCTF, a

non-governmental organisation that monitors the trade.

 

And the dangers of eating such animals are real. The BCTF points out that

SIV infection has now been reported in 26 different species of African

nonhuman primates, many of which are hunted and sold as food.

 

 

Wake-up call

 

The bush-meat trade is not the only way new diseases could jump into

humans. The trade in wildlife, both for agriculture and as pets, is a

major global business estimated to be worth billions of dollars. In 2002

alone, for instance, over 38,000 mammals, 365,000 birds, two million

reptiles, 49 million amphibians, and 216 million fish were imported into

the US.

 

In 2003, monkeypox jumped from pet prairie dogs to their human masters.

That " was just a gentle wake-up call, " says Tonie Rocke, an epidemiologist

with the US Geological Survey. Previously the disease had only been known

to infect humans after bush-meat hunters ate red colobus monkeys.

 

The trade in exotic farmed meat also appears to have sparked an unusual

outbreak of a common human parasite called Trichinella. In 2004, a farmed

crocodile in Papua New Guinea was discovered with Trichinella, which was

only thought to infect mammals, after being fed wild pig meat (Emerging

Infectious Diseases, vol 10, p 1507).

 

In 1999, another farmed crocodile in Zimbabwe was similarly infected.

" There is a strong chance that infected crocodiles may be in other

countries, and could infect humans who eat them, " says Edoardo Pozio, a

parasitologist at Rome's institute of public health. People in Papua New

Guinea who eat crocodile meat have already been found to have the parasite,

which can cause fever, rashes, and respiratory and neurological problems

in humans.

 

Rocke says there are few safeguards to prevent the spread of diseases

through the wildlife trade, and is calling for stricter import and

quarantine restrictions.

 

 

Amitabh Avasthi, New York

 

 

Return to news story

 

 

© Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

 

 

" To be better than someone is to be worse than all. "

--Lao Tsu, as quoted on KING OF THE HILL. Really.

[Guest guest]

You should belong to this groups I belong to. They have collections of

vegetarian related news in all medias and if you get it as a daily digest it

is like an online newspaper. Very Cool:

ivu-veg-news/

 

Coco

 

The Stewarts [stews9]

Thursday, August 05, 2004 11:32 AM

What Eating Meat Gets You

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bush-meat trade breeds new HIV

 

19:00 04 August 04

 

Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free

issues.

 

 

The HIV virus has jumped from primates to people on at least seven

separate occasions in recent history, not twice as is commonly thought.

 

And people in Cameroon are showing up with symptoms of HIV, but are

testing negative for both the virus and its primate equivalent SIV, the

virus from which HIV is thought to have evolved. That suggests that new

strains of an HIV-like virus are circulating in wild animals and infecting

people who eat them, sparking fears that such strains could fuel an

already disastrous global HIV pandemic.

 

The warnings come from experts who gathered this week for the annual

meeting of the Society for Conservation Biology at Columbia University,

New York. They say that deforestation and the trade in bush meat are

creating the ideal conditions for new diseases to emerge, as people have

ever closer contact with exotic animals that harbour novel pathogens.

 

The conference reports follow the discovery earlier in 2004 that simian

foamy virus, another disease that infects monkeys, has been found in

bush-meat hunters and three different species of primates. As yet, it has

not caused ill-effects, but it could mutate into something more insidious.

 

" Basically, this is a virus looking for a disease, " says William Karesh,

director of the World Conservation Society's field veterinary programme.

 

 

Small game

 

Despite those concerns, we still do not have a clear idea of how many wild

animals are killed and eaten, David Wilkie, co-chair of the Bushmeat

Crisis Task Force (BCTF), told the conference. He has carried out the

first-ever survey of daily bush-meat consumption by rural communities in

Gabon.

 

Over two years, he documented a flourishing, but previously unrecognised,

informal trade in bush meat, where rural communities hunted and ate small

game, having already caught most available primates. He thinks official

studies of bush meat sold in markets account for only 40 per cent of the

total bush meat eaten in the country.

 

" In the Congo basin alone, between one and five million metric tonnes of

bush meat was consumed last year, " says Heather Eves, head of the BCTF, a

non-governmental organisation that monitors the trade.

 

And the dangers of eating such animals are real. The BCTF points out that

SIV infection has now been reported in 26 different species of African

nonhuman primates, many of which are hunted and sold as food.

 

 

Wake-up call

 

The bush-meat trade is not the only way new diseases could jump into

humans. The trade in wildlife, both for agriculture and as pets, is a

major global business estimated to be worth billions of dollars. In 2002

alone, for instance, over 38,000 mammals, 365,000 birds, two million

reptiles, 49 million amphibians, and 216 million fish were imported into

the US.

 

In 2003, monkeypox jumped from pet prairie dogs to their human masters.

That " was just a gentle wake-up call, " says Tonie Rocke, an epidemiologist

with the US Geological Survey. Previously the disease had only been known

to infect humans after bush-meat hunters ate red colobus monkeys.

 

The trade in exotic farmed meat also appears to have sparked an unusual

outbreak of a common human parasite called Trichinella. In 2004, a farmed

crocodile in Papua New Guinea was discovered with Trichinella, which was

only thought to infect mammals, after being fed wild pig meat (Emerging

Infectious Diseases, vol 10, p 1507).

 

In 1999, another farmed crocodile in Zimbabwe was similarly infected.

" There is a strong chance that infected crocodiles may be in other

countries, and could infect humans who eat them, " says Edoardo Pozio, a

parasitologist at Rome's institute of public health. People in Papua New

Guinea who eat crocodile meat have already been found to have the

parasite,

which can cause fever, rashes, and respiratory and neurological problems

in humans.

 

Rocke says there are few safeguards to prevent the spread of diseases

through the wildlife trade, and is calling for stricter import and

quarantine restrictions.

 

 

Amitabh Avasthi, New York

 

 

Return to news story

 

 

© Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

 

 

" To be better than someone is to be worse than all. "

--Lao Tsu, as quoted on KING OF THE HILL. Really.