Wild animal meat - 'lucky' or harmful food?

Many people say that eating wild boar, weasel, and monitor lizard meat brings good luck for the new year, but experts warn that they can be harmful to health. Is this true or false? (Hung, 33 years old, Hanoi )

Reply:

Dishes made from wild animals such as wild boars, bamboo rats, ferrets, or reptiles such as monitor lizards, turtles, and wild birds are considered by many Vietnamese to be specialties, "rich people's dishes", showing luxury when entertaining guests. They believe that eating wild animal meat at the beginning of the year will bring luck and fortune, so the demand for these specialties increases during Tet.

However, consuming dishes from wild animals poses many potential health risks, especially when the eater does not know the origin of this specialty. In fact, some dangerous pathogens still appear in wild animals and are capable of causing disease in humans, such as the A/H5N1 influenza virus discovered in civets.

Wild birds can transmit many dangerous diseases such as H5N1 avian influenza virus, Ornithosis (bird fever), Psittacosis (parrot fever), diarrhea, cholera, dysentery, worms, Japanese encephalitis virus...

On the other hand, many people mistakenly believe that wild animals, typically wild boars, are of natural origin and therefore "clean" and can be processed into blood pudding and consumed. However, eating wild boar blood pudding still carries the risk of contracting streptococcus suis. Patients infected with streptococcus suis get worse very quickly. Just a few hours after symptoms of abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting or rashes on the body appear, they become severe.

In addition, wild boars or other wild animals such as civets, deer, and bamboo rats, if not properly cooked, have the potential to transmit parasites, leading to dangerous complications.

Dr. Le Van Thieu
Department of General Infections, Central Hospital for Tropical Diseases

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