The World Health Organization has released information about Ebola transmission and food safety. An outbreak of Ebola is ongoing in several African countries. The infection is only transmitted through direct contact with blood, bodily fluids, and tissues of infected people or animals.
The Ebola virus can sicken non-human primates, bats, small rodents, and shrews. The initial source of past Ebola outbreaks was human contact with wild animals through hunting, butchering, and preparing meat from infected wild animals. Most of the cases in the current outbreak, however, are through human to human contact.
If foods are properly prepared and thoroughly cooked, people cannot get sick by eating them. The virus is killed by cooking temperatures. Basic hygiene measures can prevent infection, such as regular hand washing, and changing of clothes and boots before and after touching the sick animals and their products. Sick or diseased animals should never be eaten.
If you are traveling to areas that have been affected by the Ebola outbreak, avoid eating undercooked food, especially meat. Avoid contact with animals or raw meat. The State Department has advised against any nonessential travel to Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone because of the Ebola outbreak.
We have heard that some people are burying Ebola-stricken victims near water bodies like lakes, creeks and rivers. What dangers are we looking at with respect to the spread of the virus by water, food supply,, soil contamination. What protocols can help us now, knowing that some burials along water ways have occurred?
I don’t know, but I don’t think that’s a good idea.