Health

Bushmeat - from bats to antelopes, squirrels, porcupines and monkeys - has long held pride of place on family menus in Cameroon, whether stewed, smoked or roasted.But an outbreak of the deadly Ebola fever in West Africa has rekindled concerns about the health risks of age-old African hunting and eating traditions that bring humans into close contact with wild forest animals.

If you are currently looking for bush meat in the country's capital city, go right now to the busy Nkolndongo Market which is characterised by the display of fresh and smoked bush meat. Vendors there sell snakes as tall as a human being, striped civets, antelopes, rabbit, hind, hedgehog, pangolin and porcupines with spiky fur and lots of different kinds of monkeys.

In spite of the current ban in the hunting of all species of animals due to their reproduction period, traders in bush meat do not seem bothered by the fact that they are into a forbidden trade. Yesterday July 29, 2014 Cameroon Tribune (CT) visited the bush meat market at the Nkolndongo neighbourhood in Yaounde. Besides the enormous display of smoked bush meat of all sorts, the number of fresh meat available outweighs that which has been smoked.

While CT reporters went round the market showing interest in buying fresh pangolin, over 10 traders in pangolin, mostly women rushed forward with newly killed or life pangolin at different cost. Some of the pangolin sold at FCFA 4000 while others went up to FCFA 15,000.

But the surprising thing is that when CT reporter asked to know where the meat comes from, and whether it's legal or illegal, there was no luck in this as most of the traders went back to the corners they have placed their bush meat. Nobody was interested in answering any question from CT reporters other than the interest to sell at a profitable rate.

As CT reporters looked on in dismay, one woman, speaking from her corner said, "people come and sell it to us; I do not know where they come from. They just come from the bush". From all indication, the lady does not even know if the animals she sells are protected species. She is interested in selling bush meat to make ends meet. "I am waiting for the day when I might have a problem with the authorities," the lady added.

Traders in bush meat are not hiding in what they are doing, although there is a current announcement from the Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife forbidding the hunting of all species of animal during this time regarded as their reproduction period. One of the guys at the Nkolndongo Market, specialised in cleaning animals after purchase said he was willing to discuss with the CT team in a private zone at a cost. When asked if he was aware of the fact that trading in all sort of animals was forbidden during this period, he vehemently said yes.

When asked why they are in such a business, he told CT reporters he cannot betray his mates unless he was given FCFA 5000. There are signs that people are making brisk business from bush meat and this is really a problem to forest guards as the hunting pressure keeps pressing on authorities who know that the animals need protection.

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Ngwa Bertrand

01.Aug.2014

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Cameroon’s Health Ministry has announced the death of more than 200 people in the north of the country due to a cholera outbreak over the past two months.

 

The health delegate for the northern region of the West Central African country, Rebecca Djao, said on Tuesday that over 1,500 people have so far been infected with the water-borne bacteria.

 

Only one in 20 citizens in Cameroon has access to toilets and less than one-third to safe drinking water in the country of 22 million people, according to Cameroon’s Minister of Public Works Andre Mama Fouda.

 

Cholera is an acute intestinal illness that causes severe stomach aches, diarrhea and vomiting. The disease is commonly contracted by drinking water or consuming foods that are contaminated with the cholera bacteria.

 

The mortality rate for those infected with the bacteria can range between one and 60 percent, depending on access to treatment.

 

A similar Cholera outbreak in 2010 left more than 4,000 people dead.

 

The World Health Organization (WHO) reported 586 cholera cases in South Sudan in late May, 22 of which led to deaths. The agency says it has deployed experts, including epidemiologists, logisticians and public health officers, as well as other resources to support the response to Cholera outbreaks across Africa.

 

Meanwhile, a number of African nations are currently struggling to contain the outbreak of the Ebola Virus Disease, which as of July 2014 has killed more than 670 of those infected with the deadly virus.

 

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Ngwa Bertrand

31.Jul.2014

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Ngwa Bertrand

31.Jul.2014

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Most bush meat vendors in Abidjan, have closed shops following the fear of outbreak of the dreaded Ebola virus.
The closure, according to NAN, reports, was ordered by Cote d’Iviore government as a precautionary measure against the spread of the virus.

NAN survey at Abobo Palmerer, an Abidjan settlement that hosts several bush meat and palm wine spots, showed that most of them have closed down.
Abobo Palmerer, for instance, which used to be a beehive of activities before the outbreak of Ebola, is currently a shadow of itself.
Bush meat which used to be a common sight even in the open markets, especially in Ajame, Belleville and Angre are no longer found on the vendor’s table.

Some vendors said that the patronage for bush meat had seriously dwindled do to the fear of the disease.
Mr Koassi Noel, a major bush meat dealer told NAN that the government’s directive stopping the consumption of bush meats forced him to pull out of the business.

“The government directed people to stop consuming bush meat since some of it are said to be carrying the Ebola virus”, he said.

Mrs Awa Dramane, also a vendor, said she stopped for fear of contacting the disease, saying“ they said that bush meat are sources of Ebola virus, so I don’t want to contact it’’
“If you can contact it by eating an animal that has the virus, there is no way one who handles it for sell will not contact it”, she said.

Also speaking, a meat seller Mr Saleef Rahim said he stopped the business because government officials burnt all the bush meat he had displayed for sale in his shop.

He said, “They came here and I was unlucky, they destroyed all the meat I had dried and displayed for sale, so I decided to stop”.

Meanwhile, the government of Cote d’Ivoire had said it would undertake surveillance measures at the borders to prevent the outbreak of the disease in its territory.

The Director-General, National Institute for Public Hygiene, Simplice Dagnan, said the risk of Ebola spreading in the country was high, as a result of the massive movement of people from already affected countries.

Ebola fever, a contagious disease whose cure has yet to be discovered, appeared for the first time in a northern town of former Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1976.
Current statistics say the disease which resurfaced in Guinea in April 2014, had spread to Liberia and Sierra Leone resulting in hundreds of deaths.

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Ngwa Bertrand

31.Jul.2014

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The best indicator we currently have of becoming unwell is that familiar, off-colour feeling. Our senses aren't infallible, of course – goodness knows how many false alarms and unexpected illnesses we've all had – but it's the most reliable early warning system we've got.

First came the fitness gadgets and smartbands. With the likes of Nike's Fuelband, Fitbit's Force and Jawbone's UP, wearable technology scored its first significant consumer hit; we became fascinated by the data generated by our movements and the information that could be inferred from that. A recent study by Flurry Analytics found that usage of fitness apps is growing some 87 per cent faster than the app market in general, as people embrace tools that can reaffirm or improve their fitness levels.

What's intriguing, however, is the emerging grey area between fitness data and what could be termed health data. While smart bands and associated apps tend to collate relatively benign information such as hours slept, miles walked, caffeine consumed or time spent brushing your teeth, there's provision within Health Kit and Google Fit for information we'd more normally associate with a visit to our GP: blood pressure, oxygen saturation, hydration levels, blood sugar levels and heart rate. "It's a step towards more medically orientated devices that lend themselves to capturing data that health professionals can act upon," says Dr Dushan Gunasekera, founder of myHealthCare, a private polyclinic based in Wandsworth.

That data, of course, has to come from somewhere. Health Kit and Google Fit are merely aggregators that facilitate the ingenuity of software and hardware developers – and that ingenuity is currently being funded by big increases in health-related venture capital.

iPhone-compatible oximeters and blood pressure cuffs are already sold via Apple's website. There's Dario, a "mobile diabetes management platform" that combines a smart meter to measure blood sugar levels with a smartphone app which interprets that data, along with other information you provide regarding carb intake and exercise. The smaller and cheaper these health sensors become, the easier it will be for data to be collated; for example, Google is currently working on a smart contact lens that could assess glucose levels in a more unobtrusive way then Dario's smart meter. "Wearable devices are already used in the NHS to measure blood pressure and heart tracings," says Dr Gunasekera. "So [Health Kit and Google Fit] could easily end up becoming accessible to primary care physicians."

Apple's Health Kit has received backing from the Mayo Clinic, a Minnesota-based medical research group that has tested a system of direct notifications whereby clinics could inform patients of unusual patterns in the data they've received. "The big vision is to switch from the old patient funnel where you feel sick, tell a friend, see a doctor, get tests, receive the results," says Ben Heubl from Zesty, a healthcare appointment booking service. "The new funnel is different: you track your results anyway – because the devices do it for you – and book an appointment online automatically."

It's hard to imagine Heubl's vision of an efficient, device-driven, paperless healthcare system implemented any time soon within an organisation as large as the NHS, but he's at pains to stress that this kind of data collation within a "patient passport" isn't new. "Patients Know Best is an electronic medical record (EMR) system which already links to NHS practices," he says, "and already has partnerships in place that cover wearable tracking devices."

Our enthusiasm for accessing EMRs has not been overwhelming thus far. Google Health, launched in 2008 as a central repository for health-related information, shut down in 2011 after failing to strike much of a chord. Microsoft's Health Vault, which launched slightly earlier, is still knocking around despite minimal attention, but now accepts information from a number of modern health apps and devices.

But the burgeoning interest in wearables looks set to breed a new-found curiosity in our health data that extends beyond the usual hardcore of health obsessives. "GPs already get people who print out reams of information from the internet and walk in having already incorrectly diagnosed themselves," says Dr Gunasekera. "And this wealth of data will create anxiety among some people. But when a patient comes in, it's useful to have a historic set of data and metrics; you're able to correlate things a lot quicker in the initial consultation.

That's good from a private perspective, but ultimately it could lead to time saving and efficiencies in the NHS, too. There will be challenges and hurdles, but it feels like the first step towards this elusive thing that everyone talks about: preventative medicine."

Apps, data readouts and automated alerts do not provide much in the way of bedside manner, and it's clear that the role of the doctor will be crucial within any streamlined, data-rich vision of the future of healthcare – although many GPs may still view these innovations with suspicion. "You're always going to get resistance to technology," says Dr Gunesekera. "When automatic blood pressure monitors were introduced a lot of GPs were unhappy about using them, and there will be concerns about accuracy. But the other main concern is confidentiality. It's crucial that medical data cannot leak in any way." Even though tech giants such as Apple and Google will be only too aware of the critical importance of data security, well-publicised cases of data leakage are bound to breed a lack of trust in any company that retains sensitive health information in digital form.

Having said that, we've continually demonstrated how flexible our attitudes towards privacy are when fascinating technology is dangled before us. And the eventual successors to fitness bands, whether they're externally worn or even implanted, have the potential to offer us the ultimate benefit: a healthier, longer life. Gentle warnings about our blood pressure may flash up on our phone's screen, much in the same way we currently receive a text message or a weather alert.

Initially, such messages might make us anxious and cause our blood pressure to rise even further. But in the longer term, we may view them as a welcome reassurance that our health is being efficiently looked after.

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Ngwa Bertrand

31.Jul.2014

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Guinea — Eight youths, some armed with slingshots and machetes, stood warily alongside a rutted dirt road at an opening in the high reeds, the path to the village of Kolo Bengou. The deadly Ebola virus is believed to have infected several people in the village, and the youths were blocking the path to prevent health workers from entering.

"We don't want any visitors," said their leader, Faya Iroundouno, 17, president of Kolo Bengou's youth league. "We don't want any contact with anyone." The others nodded in agreement and fiddled with their slingshots.

Singling out the international aid group Doctors Without Borders, Mr. Iroundouno continued, "Wherever those people have passed, the communities have been hit by illness."

Health workers here say they are now battling two enemies: the unprecedented Ebola epidemic, which has killed more than 660 people in four countries since it was first detected in March, and fear, which has produced growing hostility toward outside help. On Friday alone, health authorities in Guinea confirmed 14 new cases of the disease.

Workers and officials, blamed by panicked populations for spreading the virus, have been threatened with knives, stones and machetes, their vehicles sometimes surrounded by hostile mobs. Log barriers across narrow dirt roads block medical teams from reaching villages where the virus is suspected. Sick and dead villagers, cut off from help, are infecting others.

"This is very unusual, that we are not trusted," said Marc Poncin, the emergency coordinator in Guinea for Doctors Without Borders, the main group fighting the disease here. "We're not stopping the epidemic."

Efforts to monitor it are grinding to a halt because of "intimidation," he said. People appear to have more confidence in witch doctors.

Health officials say the epidemic is out of control, moving back and forth across the porous borders of Guinea and neighboring Sierra Leone and Liberia — often on the backs of the cheap motorcycles that ply the roads of this region of green hills and dense forest — infiltrating the lively open-air markets, overwhelming weak health facilities and decimating villages.

It was in this rural area, 400 miles over bad roads from Guinea's capital, Conakry, where the outbreak was first spotted, and where it has hit hardest. More than 80 percent of those infected have died in this region, and Guinea has recorded more than twice as many deaths as the other countries.

In Koundony, more than one-eighth of the population, including the headman, are dead; many others have fled.

There is no known cure for the virus, which causes raging fever, vomiting, diarrhea and uncontrolled bleeding in about half the cases and up to 90 percent of the time, rapid death. Merely touching an infected person, or the body of a victim, is dangerous; coming into contact with blood, vomit or feces can be deadly.

Now the fear of aid workers, principally from Doctors Without Borders and the Red Cross, is helping to spread the disease, health officials say, creating a secondary crisis.
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Villagers flee at the sight of a Red Cross truck. When a Westerner passes, villagers cry out, "Ebola, Ebola!" and run away.

This month, Doctors Without Borders classified 12 villages in Guinea as "red," meaning they might harbor Ebola but were inaccessible for safety reasons.

As recently as April, the epidemic seemed to be under control. But in the past two weeks, its center appeared to have shifted across the border to Sierra Leone, where most of the new dead were being recorded. The sick are being hidden and the dead buried, without any protection.

Last week, the Sierra Leone Health Ministry reported that its lead doctor fighting Ebola had contracted the disease, and the virus had spread to a fourth country, with a confirmed fatality in Nigeria. Over the weekend, an aid organization working in Liberia, Samaritan's Purse, said that two Americans, a doctor who was treating Ebola patients and an aid worker on a case management team, had tested positive for the virus. And the Liberian government said Sunday that one of its most high-profile doctors had died of Ebola, according to The Associated Press.

Back in Guinea, in the village of Wabengou, residents placed a tree in the road to block outsiders. They also attacked an official delegation from Conakry, rushing its cars, banging on the vehicles and brandishing machetes, according to Doctors Without Borders.

"We don't want them in there at all," said Wabengou's chief, Marcel Dambadounou. "We don't accept their presence at all. They are the transporters of the virus in these communities."

He was surrounded by grim-looking men from Wabengou, standing at a crossroads on the way to his village; none of them demurred.

"We are absolutely afraid, and that's why we are avoiding contact with everybody," he said, "the whole world."

Doctors Without Borders has set up an emergency treatment center in the regional capital, Guéckédou, but a nurse there said the center had diminishing appeal.

"Here, if the people come in, they don't leave alive," said the nurse, Fadima Diawara.

It may not help win confidence that the medical teams wear top-to-toe suits and masks, burning much of the outfit after helping a patient.

The wariness against outside intervention has deep roots. This part of Guinea, known as the Forest Region, where more than 200 people have already died of the disease, is known for its strong belief in traditional religion. The dictator who ruled Guinea with an iron fist for decades, Ahmed Sékou Touré, was only partly successful in a 1960s campaign to stamp out these beliefs, despite mass burnings of fetishes.

Addressing villagers this month in Bawa, where a woman had just died, the regional prefect from Guéckédou, Mohammed Cinq Keita, warned: "There is no root, no leaf, no animal that can cure you. Don't be fooled."

Near the border with Sierra Leone this month, Doctors Without Borders discovered an Ebola patient who had been privately "treated" in the village of Teldou and then returned to his relatives in another village, possibly infecting untold others.
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"Extremely, extremely concerning," said Sylvie Jonckheere, the charity's doctor on the scene. A colleague in full gear lectured the villagers of Teldou as the rain started, but was met with indifference or hostile stares; some turned their backs on him.

As the aid workers drove off, the private nurse who administered a shot to the Ebola patient defended his treatment. "I couldn't say that he had the illness," said the nurse, Eduard Leno. "His body was hot, that's all."

Asked why the patient had not been sent to the clinic in Guéckédou, he said angrily: "We are in the bush here. You can't just send someone away. How will society view you?"

Local officials have begun a campaign to open the closed villages — there have even been some recent arrests in Kolo Bengou — but in tiny Koundony, fear is palpable.

On a recent day, a Red Cross truck drove up to the cemetery to deliver the body of Marie Condé, 14, wrapped in plastic sheeting.

As the body was carried off the truck, a high-pitched wail pierced the country stillness. "There is no cure!" a woman cried. "There is no cure!"

The gravedigger, Marie's half brother Famhan Condé, 26, was sweating as he heaved shovels of dirt. The grave, he said, would be the 26th he had dug since the epidemic began.

"We're all scared here," he said. "There's no solution. We can do nothing. Only God can save us."

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Ngwa Bertrand

31.Jul.2014

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