HEALTH-GABON: Meat Ban Ruffles Feathers

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Antoine Lawson

LIBREVILLE, Oct 6 2004 (IPS) - The re-emergence of avian influenza in Asia, and an outbreak of the disease in South Africa, have put agricultural authorities in those countries on high alert.

However, the influenza is also having a knock-on effect much further afield – in countries as distant as Gabon.

The H5N1 influenza virus re-emerged in Thailand and Vietnam in July, this after an outbreak between January and April prompted the slaughter of about 100 million chickens in Asia. (China and Indonesia have also reported new flu cases.)

Avian influenza can also infect humans, and earlier this week Thai health officials said that a nine-year-old girl had become the 11th person in the country to die from the virus. She is thought to have caught it from infected chickens raised by her family; the girl had helped pluck birds after they were slaughtered.

A further 20 people have died from avian flu in Vietnam over recent months. Health experts fear that delays in containing the virus could give it the opportunity to mutate, so as to be transmitted between humans.

This might spark a flu pandemic. The first probable case of person-to-person transmission of avian flu was reported last month in Thailand.

In South Africa, the H5N2 virus – milder than the H5N1 variant – has taken a toll on the ostrich industry which, according to the South African Ostrich Business Chamber, supplies 70 percent of the world’s ostrich meat. Since the start of the outbreak towards the end of July in the Eastern Cape province, thousands of birds have been slaughtered.

H5N1, a highly contagious virus first isolated in Italy in 1878, almost invariably kills the birds that it infects. According to the World Health Organisation, birds may even die on the same day that they first exhibit symptoms of the disease.

As a result of these developments, authorities in Gabon have suspended the import of poultry, day-old chicks, eggs and pork from Thailand, Vietnam, China, Indonesia and South Africa. In addition to birds and humans, avian flu may infect pigs.

Necessary as these measures might be, they have dealt a blow to families who depend on low-cost meat imports to supplement their diets. At present, 70 percent of the meat consumed in Gabon is imported.

“Deprived of less-costly chicken and eggs from Asia, low-income families are going to make a beeline for beef and beef cutlets, the price of which has gone up due to high demand,” a resident of the capital, Libreville, told IPS.

According to the 2004 Human Development Report, produced by the United Nations Development Programme, per capita income in Gabon amounts to 6,590 dollars – placing the country is the middle income bracket. This figure conceals income inequalities that can be substantial, however.

While the latest Human Development Report does not give figures for the number of people living on less than a dollar a day in Gabon, it is clear that certain families are struggling to cope with the fact that even the least expensive meat cuts are now selling for between 1.5 to two dollars a kilogramme – this according to the General Office for Statistics and Economic Studies.

Cyprien Moussavou, an electrician and father, says it is “difficult at times to vary one’s diet because the budget for food is so limited.”

However, Calixte Mbeng, assistant director general of agriculture, emphasizes that government is not trying to penalize consumers by banning poultry and pork imports. “They have to understand that everything destined for consumption in Gabon has to be checked,” he told IPS.

As a result of the ban on produce from Asia and South Africa, poultry and pork are being imported from Europe, Chad and especially Cameroon – again at greater cost. However, some allege that this has given rise to exploitation on the part of meat sellers.

“Butcher shops and markets are purposely obscuring the origins of their meats, poultry and pork. Shopkeepers…dump the products on the market by saying they’re from non-affected countries. They then sell them at huge profit,” Marcel Vouma, a consumer affairs specialist, told IPS.

For their part, distributors complain that government officials themselves do little to uphold the spirit – if not the letter – of the law.

“For our vendors, there have been increasing inspections and we have to pay the government between 46 and 185 dollars to get a certificate saying that we’ve conformed with the law,” said a distributor who preferred to remain anonymous.

But, “We’re wondering how inspectors can say the product is safe after they’ve done nothing more than peek furtively a few times into some boxes of imported chickens,” he added.

The Ministry of Commerce has now threatened to impose high fines on anyone found to be contravening the import ban, which was issued Aug. 23.

Concerns about avian flu have also highlighted the need for Gabon to develop its own agricultural sector, so that the country can reduce its dependence on meat imports.

Petroleum exports have been the focus of economic activity for the past three decades, something that caused agricultural planning to take a back seat.