Angolans continue to eat game meat despite health ministry warnings about mpox

Many Angolans, fans of game meat, continue to seek out local markets to consume wild animals, despite the Ministry of Health’s advice to avoid eating monkeys and rodents due to the risk of ozone contamination.

At the Mercado do 30 store in Luanda, Fifi Ernesto sells smoked wild boar, deer and cambuieje (large rodents) meat, eliminating the risks associated with the disease commonly known as monkeypox when handling it.

“It’s a lie that game meat brings diseases, I, for one, [acho que] “Chicken legs and fish are food for children, I always prefer game meat with other vegetables because it is natural,” assured 39-year-old Fifi, setting up a counter with a huge amount of smoked meat.

The section of dried and smoked meats, especially game, at this huge market in the municipality of Viana, 30 kilometres from the centre of Luanda, where MPOX is not a topic of conversation, is filled mainly with women.

There you can find a variety of smoked game meats, from venison and wild boar to seiche (a type of small antelope) and cambuige (which are among the most sought after), but monkey meat is scarce, despite the desire of buyers.

“Monkey meat rarely appears here because the vendors don’t carry it anymore,” Fifi added.

For the seller, after eight years of working in this market, where dried, fresh and smoked meat is exposed to flies and dust, without observing the recommended hygienic conditions, the product she sells does not pose any risk of disease.

“We preserve meat well, we don’t know how it is preserved where it comes from. [no interior de Angola]and here in our hands, if it is wet, then it must go into the fire [para estar imune aos parasitas] and prevent it from rotting,” he explained.

Cristina Afonso, 61, who lives in the province of Cuando Cubango but sells smoked game meat at the Mercado do 30 market in the capital, is also unaware of the risks associated with the occlusion.

“I haven’t heard of this disease yet,” she said when asked about mpox, but assured that she does not sell monkey meat despite demand.

“There are people who eat it, but since I don’t eat it, I don’t buy it to sell,” he explained, noting that the deer and wild boar meat he sells is purchased from hunters in Cuando Cubango, a province with many forests, parks and reserves.

Salt water is the main means of preserving this type of meat to prevent contamination of the product by rodents and worms.

“This meat was soaked (in salt water) and then exposed to the sun before being stored to protect it from animals,” explained Cristina, lamenting on the other hand the decline in the number of customers at what is considered one of the largest sky markets open in Luanda.

Four halves of smoked meat now sell for 15,000 kwanzas (15 euros).

Iraulo Teka, one of the few consumers of game meat, admitted he was unaware of the risks associated with smallpox and asked health authorities for more information about the disease, whose epicentre is in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which shares a large land and sea border with Angola.

“I still don’t understand it [do mpox]”But the authorities who analyse what comes here and what we consume should know best,” he noted, while also guaranteeing that game meat, especially his favourite wild boar, is “the best”.

Teka, originally from Zaire province in northern Angola, recalls being born in a village and that game meat “is the best food.”

“We are just consumers and we are not afraid. When a hunter goes out into the forest and comes [com a carne] “For me, this is good consumption,” he emphasized, also complaining about the prices set there.

In addition to smoked meat, live and dead wild animals can often be found for sale in some parts of Angola, particularly along the roads out of Luanda, despite authorities cracking down on poaching.

Angola’s health ministry said there were no cases of smallpox yet in the country and had developed surveillance measures aimed at stopping possible transmission of the virus, whose resurgence in the Democratic Republic of Congo has already killed more than 500 people.

Last week, the ministry confirmed that individual and collective protective measures must be taken, namely: not hunting or eating the meat of monkeys and rodents (rats, mice, cambodia and squirrels), and avoiding direct exposure to the meat and blood of these animals.

WHO has declared a smallpox outbreak in Africa a global health emergency, with confirmed cases among children and adults in more than a dozen countries and a new variant in circulation thought to be more dangerous than the one discovered in 2022.

The new variant can be easily transmitted through close contact between two people without the need for sexual contact.