Newsweek story on Ebola spread through smuggled African bushmeat draws ire
KINGSTON, Jamaica – Speculations raised in a Newsweek article that “bushmeat” smuggled from Africa could cause a possible outbreak of the Ebola virus in the US has received much criticism from the Global Research Centre for Research of Globalisation.
An August 29 article in Newsweek titled, “A Back Door for Ebola: Smuggled Bushmeat Could Spark a US Epidemic” suggests that illegally imported “bushmeat”–or “wild game” as some would call it –could carry the deadly Ebola virus.
Seemingly appalled by the title of the article, its claims and the accompanying image, Global Research lashed out against the ideas presented in the story.
“It’s 2014, and a national magazine has a cover story about how African immigrants might spread a deadly virus in the United States, thanks to the peculiar and unsanitary food they eat. The cover image is a photo of a chimpanzee,” Global Research argued.
They criticised the authors of not having a sound basis for their claims and pulling evidence from social media and a “highly publicized tweet from Donald Trump.”
Global Research also questioned the source of a seven-year old memo cited in the Newsweek article stating that bushmeat is “a potential vector of diseases such as Monkeypox, Ebola Virus, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and other communicable diseases.’”
They say that Newsweek magazine’s strongest case seems to come when it reports that while “researchers cannot identify with absolute certainty the cause of the current Ebola outbreak, they do know the strain of virus, while being similar to the Zaire strain, is indigenous to Guinea, suggesting bushmeat was the source.”
Despite the fears over bushmeat, a study of Ebola and Marburg outbreaks since 1976 indicate it is close contact with bats in particular that seems to be behind the transmission to humans of the deadly virus, the research centre explained.
Global Research emphasised that “the idea that Ebola is spread through direct contact with certain kinds of infected animals and freshly slaughtered carcasses is quite different than the story Newsweek is pushing.”
