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Ebola Outbreak in Guinea Gets Bat Eating Banned

By | Mar 25, 2014 01:52 PM EDT
The consumption of bat meat is not uncommon in many remote regions of the world. (Photo : Flickr: Edwin Saleh)

The consumption of bat meat is likely one of the original sources of a deadly Ebola outbreak in Guinea. Since this discovery, bat has been banned from sale and consumption in the country.

In what is reportedly the first outbreak of Ebola the country has ever seen, 62 people have already died from the deadly viral infection, with five more deaths in Liberia, which shares boarders with Guinea. Suspected cases in the bordering country of Sierra Leone have also been reported in unspecified numbers.

Public health officials are saying that bats are suspected to be the "main agents" behind the Ebola outbreak.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease control and Prevention, the Ebola virus spreads by close and prolonged contact with an infected organism.

Knowing this, it should be no surprise to learn that bat meat is a food commonly prepared in remote south regions of Guinea, where the outbreak is suspected to had started. Public Health officials suspect that the virus originally spread after Guinea citizens preparing a meal were exposed Ebola when handling the fresh carcasses of infected bats.

Following this revelation, Rene Lamah of Guinea has announced a ban on the sale and consumption of bats, particularly in the heavily forested remote south, according to a BBC News report. However, this will understandably prove difficult to enforce as southern Guinea consist primarily of remote villages.

Several medical agencies have also been reported to set up quarantine sites in southern Guinea in an effort to help contain the outbreak.

Ebola, which is currently also affecting Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, is commonly found in remote parts of central and West Africa, particularly near tropical rainforests.

According to the World Health Organization, the deadly virus is known to cause hemorrhagic fever outbreaks that have a fatality rate of up to 90 percent.  Fruit bats of the Pteropodidae family are considered to be the natural host of the Ebola virus.

© MD News Daily.

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