A consumer advisory for bushmeat has been issued by the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA). This illegal product was confiscated in December 2021 at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. There have been “multiple instances” of bushmeat being smuggled into Minnesota from Liberia, according to the notice. Those products were seized and destroyed. Bushmeat is raw … Read more
According to an article in The Conversation, deforestation and industrial-scale farming could have been a contributing factor in the Ebola outbreak in Africa. The global palm oil industry has been deep-cutting into forests; this helps spread pathogens by opening areas formerly untouched to human exploration. And land grabs force animals out of forests where they … Read more
Today is World Food Day. The U.N. said that the Ebola crisis in Africa is causing a food crisis. The U.N.’s World Food Program (WFP) needs to reach 1.3 million people in need of food in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea, the hardest-hit regions in the outbreak. That agency has supplied more than half a … Read more
The current Ebola outbreak crisis that has many people so worried started in eastern Guinea, through a “chance contact” by a toddler with an infected fruit bat. Fruit bats are natural reservoirs for the virus, according to the World Health Organization. The bats migrate over long distances. Fruit bats are regularly eaten in rural West … Read more
The White House released a fact sheet on Friday about the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA). Discussions were held at the White House which included leaders of the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Organization for Animal Health, and representatives from 40 countries. FAO Director-General Jose Graziano de Silva spoke about the need for animal … Read more
The Ebola outbreak in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and other West African countries has made food expensive and hard to find. Labor shortages because of the outbreak are putting the harvest season at risk and trade is being disrupted, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. This has led to … Read more
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 … Read more