Deadly fever forces Kenyans to give up beloved meat

By Tia Goldenberg Feb 5, 2007, 15:47 GMT

Nairobi - Sitting in a dark and empty butchery, Lawrence Ngacha chomps down on succulent chunks of roast meat, or nyama choma as it's called in Swahili, and boasts of his fearlessness.

'I am not scared,' he roars as he snatches a cube of beef from his plate and bites down in delight.

Ngacha's fearlessness is seen as reckless behaviour by many of Nairobi's residents these days. Already, some 137 people have died of an outbreak of Rift Valley Fever (RVF), a fatal disease transmitted to humans by infected livestock or mosquitoes.

While officials say the worst is over, the outbreak has spread shock in Nairobi, with usually fanatical meat-eaters staving off their indulgences to prevent catching the disease, and instead driving the city's many butchers into economic despair.

At the usually bustling Kenyatta market, a large expanse of butcheries and nyama choma joints, meat vendors sit idle waiting for customers, whose numbers have dwindled since RVF first saw the pages of daily newspapers in early December.

'Business is almost at a standstill,' said butcher Evans Kuria, whose display is full of hunks of meat that will most likely be discarded after not being sold.

'Farmers, business people and middle men are all affected. I pray all will be well as soon as possible,' said Kuria.

He said his clientele has plummeted from about 60 customers a day to less than a dozen. Rather than selling 100 kilograms of meat a day, he has been selling fewer than 10.

RVF's symptoms are flu-like, but the disease can worsen and lead to haemorrhagic fever where the patient can die after bleeding from various orifices.

It's a frightening mental picture for some.

'We have a right to be scared,' said Joe Otieno, a taxi driver who gave up eating meat last month.

Otieno said he was convinced to stay away from nyama choma when two people died of RVF in Nairobi. Until then, most of the fatalities occurred in Kenya's remote north-east.

The victims in Nairobi, however, allegedly caught the disease outside the city.

But the hysteria has spread despite constant government insistence that the outbreak is under control and that Kenyans should not give up meat.

For now, the workers at Kenyatta market have had to opt to sell less expensive chicken instead of unwanted meat. The threat of avian flu, never too real in Kenya but a cause of fear nonetheless, has apparently faded from the minds of Kenyans.

'People are just scared. Even if we show them a health letter from the government they won't eat meat,' said Fred Musyoka, a butcher.

The Kenyan government has been vaccinating livestock and insists that only meat that has been inspected is getting on the market. The vendors at Kenyatta market proudly display government notices proclaiming their meat has been checked, but to no avail.

It's a difficult time for carnivorous Kenyans, who treat simple roast meat as a delicacy and the mainstay of any family celebration or get-together. Kenyans of all social and economic levels spend hours at gatherings with a beer by their side waiting for the slow-roasting meat to cook and be carved up.

'We usually host parties here for people celebrating something or other,' said meat seller Mary Mburu. 'Now it's totally zero. There's no one.'

Except for Ngacha, the lone customer.

'You can come to me tomorrow and see I am still here and still alive,' he said, pausing to lick his oil-and-salt-coated fingers as he finished the last bite of his evening meal.

'I have eaten here for the last 30 years and I'm not about to stop.'