As Ebola scourges Congo, experts warn of link to eating wild animals
Source: AP
The vendors of wild meat at the sprawling Masina Market in the Congolese capital don’t always display their goods openly. Customers must ask for whatever they’re looking for, whether it is a giant swamp rodent or the severed parts of an antelope.
Others occasionally sell in the open, like the women who preside over impossibly large baskets of squirming caterpillars at the market in Kinshasa.
For many in Congo and elsewhere in Central and West Africa wild meat is a craving and a key part of the cultural milieux. Even a disease as punishing as Ebola, currently ravaging a remote part of eastern Congo, has failed to stem demand for wild meat from the Congo Basin, an expansive forested ecosystem sometimes called Earth’s second lung.
The Congo Basin is rich in all kinds of wildlife, from great apes to serpents — both of which are hunted for their meat. One consequence for locals is exposure to zoonotic diseases such as Ebola.
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/ebola-congo-wild-meat-3ef8a5555bce331d1c0f9af50940e028
KINSHASA, Congo (AP) —
By RODNEY MUHUMUZA
Updated 1:22 AM EDT, May 30, 2026
= new reply since forum marked as read
Due to the disruptions of war and climate change, they are bound to seek out additional food sources. That's on top of everything that you mentioned.
It's a big mess. It makes me sad. Hunger could be eliminated if we cared enough to try.
We have an expanded hunger problem in the USA. We used to have a mechanism to track it.
The psychopaths made sure to do away with that little inconvenient money waster.
Just like they killed USAID and are trying to end funding for the WFP.
Thanks for the reply, uppityperson. It's good to see you. ❤️