At least 63 people have now died from the Ebola outbreak in Guinea although the authorities believe they have managed to isolate the problem to the country’s remote south east.
In the meantime the consumption and selling of bats – a local delicacy In Guinea – has been banned after scientists identified the animal as being one of the main agents for the spreading of the deadly disease.
Doctors such as Mamadou Saliou Bah are now urging prevention in a two pronged attack against the virus.
“Guineans should get into prevention. This prevention means in the first instance not to consume everything that is a rodent and can carry disease. By rodents I mean rats, bats, and raw monkey meat, which unfortunately we still find being eaten in forest areas.”
The disease has already spread to Sierra Leone and Liberia but in Ivory Coast where the disease has not yet appeared, the authorities are banning bush meat as their own a preventative measure.
The Ebola virus can reside in monkeys, rodents and bats and be passed on to the humans.
Ebola causes fever, vomiting and external and internal bleeding and has an over 70 percent fatality rate. There is no known cure.
