By Ezaruku Draku Franklin

At Lawns Lounge in Kololo, an upscale city restaurant, a billboard advertising game meat delicacy stands huge, emitting neon lights. Every lunch hour and dinner time, high end vehicles stream in, neatly parked with elegantly dressed men and women seated, munching the delicacy accompanied by glasses of finely refined wines, whiskeys, spirits and beers.

This is not an isolated spot. Across the city, many high end restaurants serve game meat, a preserve for the affluent class who sometimes make pre-orders so that their delicacies are prepared to their tastes.

Across East Africa data from conservation agencies show that five million tons of bush meat is consumed in the East and Central African region annually, while in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) alone, one million tons of bush meat flows into urban centers every year.

This is attributed to the soaring food prices, the pandemic disruptions, civil strife, and lethargic policing which fuel illegal trade in bush meat and the spread of zoonotic diseases in the vast East and Central African region.

Not much is said of how these restaurants obtain game meat, whether they have licenses for sport hunting or not, but they operate without fear of arrest. However, unknown to them is the fact that they could be centres for the spread of zoonotic diseases from these wild game meat to human beings.

While the bushmeat business poses a big risk to wildlife population because of poaching to meet the market demand, it at the same time poses one of the biggest public health hazards in the recent times, with rampant emergence of zoonotic diseases which are transmitted from animals to humans.

Despite heavy restrictions placed on illegal wildlife trade, the close interactions between human beings and wildlife has given birth to Zoonotic diseases, whose origins are traced to wildlife.

Zoonotic disease are those transmitted from Animals to Humans. It is an infectious disease that is transmitted between species from animals to humans or from humans to animals.

In recent times, the world has been hit with heavy zoonotic diseases including the dreaded Covid-19 that has paralysed the world for over two years, the monkey pox that is already causing global crisis and the deadly Ebola that has hit Uganda in the last few weeks.

Others include the Zoonotic influenza, Salmonellosis, West Nile virus, Plague, Rabies, Brucellosis and Lyme disease.

Data from conservation agencies indicate that the hunting, trade and consumption of wild meat, or bushmeat, in Africa is a past, current and potential future zoonotic disease risk because pathogens that have spread to humans from bushmeat like HIV, simian foamy virus, monkeypox virus, Ebola viruses, anthrax, herpesviruses, retroviruses and paramyxoviruses have devastating effects on humans.

Although zoonotic disease transmission can occur at any point along the bushmeat supply chain, from hunting in the forest to the point of consumption, markets in large urban areas are particularly dangerous.

For example, HIV/AIDS was first discovered in DRC in 1959 after the virus was reportedly transferred from Gorillas to human beings.

A 2022 report by the Traffic International, a conservation organization that tracks wildlife trade titled options for managing and tracing wild animal trade chains to reduce zoonotic risk says The COVID-19 pandemic and the SARS-CoV-2 virus’s suspected wild animal origins have spurred fresh consideration of how to reduce zoonotic disease risks associated with wild animal trade.

The report says trade in domestic livestock has comparatively well-developed biosecurity measures for disease risk reduction, and these measures can be adapted to wild animal trade to build on existing knowledge, regulations, and infrastructure.

It says the potential for zoonotic disease emergence in wild animal trade can be more complex than in domestic livestock trade due to the diversity of species in trade. It says the risk of zoonotic spillover to humans tends to be higher via wild mammal and wild bird taxa and that trade in live animals presents the highest risks compared to other wild animal products, followed by raw meat.

The report says disease risks may be amplified along lengthy trade chains with more intermediaries and that risks are higher where different species come into contact with each other including contact with domestic animals and humans.

Daniel Mdetele, a Tanzanian epidemiologist, and the manager of wildlife trade at the Traffic International during a recent webinar organized by Earth Journalism Network said that limiting interaction between wildlife and communities, enhanced surveillance, public outreach, and improved sanitary standards will be key to containing zoonotic diseases in Africa.

He said when humans interact with wildlife, they can easily be infected wild the viruses and bacteria from the wildlife hence transmitting diseases from the wildlife to humans.

“Either these pathogens can infect the humans directly or they can pass through vectors like Tse-Tse flies, ticks, flees mosquitoes and other vectors that bite human beings and infect them. We also have domestic animals like dogs and cats and when they fight with the wild animals they can bite each other and bring the diseases home,” he said.

He said when these zoonotic disease transfer to domestic animals, their rate of multiplications is very high because domestic animals have lower immunity and are susceptible to infections.

Uganda is currently battling Ebola that has so far claimed 23 lives as of Monday September 26, 2022.

So far there has been no know contact tracing to DRC where Ebola was earlier on reported and the first contact in Mubende where the current outbreak was first reported in Uganda. Also of concern is that the strain in Uganda is of Sudan origin, further raising complexities on where the disease originated from.

Dr Mdetele said the East African region has been prone to a number of zoonotic diseases for years and that this greatly affects the human health in the region. He said the risk is very high among hunters.

“They are at the highest risk of contracting the diseases because hunters who hunt animals like primates, birds, small animals, these are very infectious compared to other species. Those who are processing the bush meat also are at a very high risk because they closely interact with the carcasses which may be contaminated with the virus and bacteria if they are not protected,” he said.

He mentioned other high risk groups like transporters and consumers whom he said are all vulnerable to zoonotic diseases if exposed to infected wildlife.

Driving factors.

The biggest driving factor for bush meat consumption among the rural communities is rampant poverty which forces the locals to resort to the available wildlife which comes at no cost, but only needs locally available hunting materials.

Kenneth Kimitei, the Landscape Ecologist for the Tsavo-Mkomazi Landscape at the Nairobi-based African Wildlife Foundation, noted that criminal syndicates are fueling the illegal trade in bush meat, which caused the spread of zoonotic diseases like Ebola, Marburg virus, and monkeypox in Africa.

Kimitei said rampant poverty, demand for proteins in urban centers, cultural beliefs, and weak surveillance contribute to the illegal trafficking of game meat on a continent that is prone to such zoonotic diseases.

He said most of the illegal poaching taking place from December onwards because that’s they period when majority of people have stopped cultivating and resort to hunting.

“During this period, many people are idle, some have lost jobs while many are poor so the only available option for them is to engage in illegal poaching which is dangerous,” he said.

“Many of them actually go for bush meat and hunting because of the money they get from these illegal activities. For example, someone can kill an animal and get an equivalent of a motorcycle in monetary form so that makes them to go for hunting,” he added.

He said some most wildlife species targeted for meat by poachers across the region include the Maasai giraffe, zebra, buffalo, gazelle, and reptiles.

What needs to be done?

Kimitei governments and other stakeholders must strengthen anti-poaching measures, raise awareness campaigns, and provide alternative livelihoods to communities living near wildlife sanctuaries so that they stop the illegal trade in bushmeat.

Daniel Ndizihiwe, the Wildlife, and Protected Areas Manager, at World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Uganda said while the East and Central African region has become the epicenter of the illegal bushmeat trade which in turn creates security and public health crisis, Uganda particularly has started programmes that help communities to engage in generating incomes from legitimate ventures.

For example, he says in Queen Elizabeth National Park and Mountain Rwenzori National Park, they have organized communities into groups and provided alternative livelihoods means for them.

“In Queen Elizabeth National Park, we have organized the reformed poachers into groups and provided them with piglets and shelters where they can be safely kept. We have also introduced apiary to them and therefore they have not time to go hunting since they are busy looking after their businesses,” he said.

He also says where soft approach has failed, stringent and punitive laws have been introduced to deal with the culprits.

He said action should be taken for the rescue, recovery, rebuilding and expansion of the global network of protected and conserved areas and that there is need to fully implement one health approach with the goal of achieving optimal health outcomes recognizing the interconnection between people, animals, plants, and their shared environment

The 2019 Uganda Wildlife Act amendment provides for lengthy prison times and hefty fines which the authorities say are deterrent enough to stop or reduce wildlife poaching.