Stay off bush meat; Health experts advise

By Edmund Smith-Asante

 Health experts have advised patrons of bush meat to stay off them for a while in order to prevent any Ebola infection.

The health professionals who were answering questions at a media sensitisation programme organised by the Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL) last Tuesday, said there was a greater likelihood of infection from any game that had the virus.

“Avoid contact with bush meat as much as possible. If you have handled it, make sure that you are protected. It is more likely for a person to get the virus when dissecting the meat,” an official from the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Mr Michael Adjabeng said.

This was in response to a question on what temperature was adequate for cooking an animal in order to ensure its safety for consumption.

According to Mr Adjabeng, although not all bats had the virus, the bat was the natural reservoir for the Ebola virus. He added that when all other animals are infected with the virus, they would die from it, just like humans, which meant they could infect anyone if they had the virus.

In response to whether there were fruits that should not be eaten because fruit bats may have touched them, he said, “if you see a fruit in the forest and you are not sure who bit it, don’t go near it.”

Bats at 37 Hospital

Also answering a question on the steps taken to ensure that the fruit bats at the 37 Military Hospital did not infect anyone through their droppings, the Deputy Minister of Health, Dr Victor Asare Bampoe, said it had not been ascertained that they were carriers of the virus.

He, however, cautioned that anyone who got some of their droppings on their cars should carefully and thoroughly wash them off with the necessary detergents.

Dr Bampoe also said the virus had to live inside a cell and that if they were exposed to sunlight, they became inactive.

Dr Kofi Bonney of the Noguchi Memorial Institute of Medical Research said “a virus can only grow inside a cell”, which meant that if it got into a human or animal’s body, it entered a cell and started multiplying.

“For Ebola, research has shown that it takes three to four days for it to exist outside a body cell,” after which it became  inactive, especially in the sun, he said.

Rural and children sensitisation 

On educating people living in rural areas on the virus, the Public Relations Officer of the Ghana Health Service, Mrs Rebecca Ackwonu, said the service was embarking on community education.

“There are health promotion officers in the regions who do advocacy. They also engage opinion leaders and chiefs as well as religious bodies,” she said.

Regarding the visually and hearing impaired, she said audio and video recordings would be sent to their schools and sign language would be incorporated when the video was shown on television. 

“The production of braille for the visually impaired also came up at the education sub-committee meeting,” she stated.

Answering a question on the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital’s preparedness, the deputy health minister said, “I think the responsibility for us is to make sure that the rhetoric reality gap is closed. 

He indicated that guidelines and recommendations had already been given for health facilities to put in place isolation centres to do some of the things they would do in readiness for Ebola. He promised that the health ministry would make sure that through the Ghana Health Service hierarchy, the hospitals did what was expected of them.

Writer’s email: Edmund.Asante@graphic.com.gh

This was first published by the Daily Graphic on August 21, 2014