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[Loud Whispers]

... translation: No nomble batspagnol. Else, ebola.

ebola bola
don touch a fren
no eatin thins

[BurnedToast]

A few weeks ago, back when the ebola news hype was at its peak, my A&P teacher(a really awesome guy) dug the school's VHS player out of the closet and showed us an old documentary about the last outbreak.

After we watched it, I was thinking... they still don't know where ebola comes from, only that there's an outbreak every ~20 years. It got me wondering, what could transmit it only once every twenty years-ish?

The realization hit me like a mixed metaphor full of sledgehammers. Periodical cicadas in North America emerge once every 17 years. I did a quick google search, and Africa has ~450 species of cicadas, the most of any continent. I did some more research, but it didn't appear that there were any periodical cicadas in Africa. Believe it or not, the internet does not have a list of all species of cicada in Africa, although it does have a list of those in Australia. I shoved the issue in the back of my mind for a while.

So, I ask you, Bay12: Does anyone know where I can find the species of cicadas in Africa?

Except we do know where it comes from, wild animals act as a reservoir that's borderline impossible to eliminate, and africans have a long tradition of eating "bushmeat" (aka anything and everything). The 2001 and 2003 outbreaks were linked with people who'd butchered and eaten gorillas, and the 2007 outbreak to some children who brought dead fruit bats home which their mother cooked.

[Orange Wizard]

You're saying that the solution is to carpet-bomb most of North Africa?

[LordSlowpoke]

everything south of egypt and north of zimbabwe ror

[Frumple]

No, no... if you're going to go that far, you might as well kill the triceratops entirely. Sink the entire continent into the ocean.

Or, for a perhaps more radical suggestion, maybe everyone can pitch in a little and help make it so less of/none of the african peoples have need to dip into the mentioned reservoir? That sort of thing seems to naturally regulate itself to the decadent after a sufficient portion of the population has other means of feeding itself.

[scrdest]

No, no... if you're going to go that far, you might as well kill the triceratops entirely. Sink the entire continent into the ocean.

Or, for a perhaps more radical suggestion, maybe everyone can pitch in a little and help make it so less of/none of the african peoples have need to dip into the mentioned reservoir? That sort of thing seems to naturally regulate itself to the decadent after a sufficient portion of the population has other means of feeding itself.

Why would it? It's free food nobody really minds eating. That kinda sounds culturally imperialist, 'the poor savages would eat PROPER food if we only got them some'.

[Dutchling]

Yeah, don't be a shitlord Frumple. If they want to eat Ebolabat they should be allowed to do so.

Oppressor

[Sheb]

Does the Ebola virus resist proper cooking?

[scrdest]

Does the Ebola virus resist proper cooking?

According to a WHO document, it is thermally inactivated, but requires a full hour of cooking at 60*C or half an hour at 75*C. I also presume the experiments were using liquid-suspended viruses, which might lower the required time a bit. Besides, they burn the corpses for a reason.

Also, proper cooking is a difficult thing to measure, unless you're knowingly checking the temperature with a food thermometer there's usually some wild variation in temperatures, so it might have just not have been cooked long enough to kill off all the virii.

Yeah, don't be a shitlord Frumple. If they want to eat Ebolabat they should be allowed to do so.

Oppressor

Ha-ha. Ha. Haha. I am amused now.

What I'm saying it, don't assume they don't want to eat Ebolabat, and if they do, they fucking WILL.

[Frumple]

Less culturally imperialist than... meatily imperialist? I guess? From what I understand of meat, just due to what bushmeat tends to be -- the type of animals, and how they live/what they eat -- the meat trends toward being on the lower range of delicious flesh quality, compared to your average farm grown stuff or whatev'.

And, from what I've seen elsewhere, the general pattern is that as better meat becomes more ubiquitous, the worse quality meat starts to regulate itself to the (relatively) rich. And so, as conditions improve (that is, higher quality flesh becomes more available), regular consumption of deathmeat should reduce alongside them. You'd still probably have some consumption of deathmeat, just... less.

S'like, in these parts, squirrel and possum and etc. are generally free if you feel like getting off your arse and maybe throwing a rock at a tree or summat like that, and yet, while it is eaten, even among the poor it's not eaten often. Because it's edible but kinda' nasty, and sometimes even free isn't worth that taste, y'know? Not when a relatively negligible amount can get you not-free, but tastier.

[scrdest]

OK, point taken.

On the other hand, you've said yourself, it won't strictly END, it will mostly be confined to worse-off end of the poor. Who, I imagine, don't exactly have formal education in food hygiene or virology, so it won't end the problem. It might reduce the chance of an outbreak a bit, but the reservoir is still there, and it's still pretty much 'prey Joe McPoorkid doesn't happen to catch the wrong bat'.

[Sinistar]

inb4 "If only uncle Adolf was still alive, he'd know what to do about them Africans..."

No discussion free of Godwin.




...I am a horrible person, I'm sorry.

[Sheb]

OK, point taken.

On the other hand, you've said yourself, it won't strictly END, it will mostly be confined to worse-off end of the poor. Who, I imagine, don't exactly have formal education in food hygiene or virology, so it won't end the problem. It might reduce the chance of an outbreak a bit, but the reservoir is still there, and it's still pretty much 'prey Joe McPoorkid doesn't happen to catch the wrong bat'.

Well, if those countries had functioning healthcare system, it'd be pretty easy to stop outbreaks from getting this bad.

[scrdest]

OK, point taken.

On the other hand, you've said yourself, it won't strictly END, it will mostly be confined to worse-off end of the poor. Who, I imagine, don't exactly have formal education in food hygiene or virology, so it won't end the problem. It might reduce the chance of an outbreak a bit, but the reservoir is still there, and it's still pretty much 'prey Joe McPoorkid doesn't happen to catch the wrong bat'.

Well, if those countries had functioning healthcare system, it'd be pretty easy to stop outbreaks from getting this bad.

But they don't. And that's the biggest problem, there's no single problem, there's several different problems each of which needs to be fixed before it can be brought under control, otherwise the weakest link will do what all weakest links do.

[LordSlowpoke]

Less culturally imperialist than... meatily imperialist? I guess? From what I understand of meat, just due to what bushmeat tends to be -- the type of animals, and how they live/what they eat -- the meat trends toward being on the lower range of delicious flesh quality, compared to your average farm grown stuff or whatev'.

ayyyyyy

are you saying that meat farms are in any shape or form superior to ebolabat

the only reason meat farms are not ebolabat is because they spray fucking everything with so many antibiotics i recall who shouting "pls no"

give them a knowledge of virology to the measure of "hey guys catching bats is not a good fucking idea" it's not like poor people don't keep away from poisonous shit if they very well know it's poisonous don't they