For the love of meat, you must read this!

Nigeria is a country of meat-lovers. Across geographical locations, cultures, tribes, and socioeconomic status, almost every family consumes meat regularly in our country. “Meat” commonly refers to all kinds of animal carcass that have been slaughtered for consumption and as a source of animal protein.

Frequently, for the sake of preference and reference, we distinguish meat by their respective animals such as cattle meat (beef), goat meat, pig meat (pork) etc. Also, we consume the (fleshy) meat along with meat offal in Nigeria. Offal, (commonly known as inu eran in Yoruba language) refers to all edible organs of the animal apart from the (fleshy) meat. These include lung, liver, kidneys, spleen, small and large intestine, heart etc. These offal products are indeed common delicacies among Nigerian meat consumers as it is widely consumed to accompany various meals, soups, and stews.

Now, for health and food security reasons, it is important that all food processing plants or institutions pay attention to quality and hygienic processing of their raw food products before selling to the public for consumption. In the case of meat and offal, abattoirs and abattoir workers are generally responsible for slaughtering, processing, and selling them to the public for consumption. However, for most Nigerian abattoirs, the highly unhealthy and unsanitary conditions in which these meat and offal are produced is appalling and of great risk to public health. A particularly unhealthy practice is the habit of selling a visibly infected meat and offal to the public for consumption.

In many cases, when an animal has an ongoing infection or disease, the evidence of this infection can be seen in the affected internal organs of the animal’s body. This include all the offal products as listed above especially the intestines, lungs, liver, kidney, and heart. These signs of disease may be seen in these organs as tubercles (like in tuberculosis infections), presence of live worms and their eggs (like in worm infestations), abscess, change in normal coloration of organ, change in normal texture of the organ etc.

For an infected organto be sold as offal in Nigerian abattoirs, the main danger lies in the fact that these infections can be transferred to humans when they consume the meat offal. And for a country like Nigeria where little or no meat inspection is done and butchers commonly sell their unhygienic meat without supervision, consuming these infected offal is a remarkable health risk. Diseases that can be transmitted from consuming infected meat and offal may include tuberculosis, worm infections, salmonellosis, brucellosis, anthrax, protozoan infections etc., causing a variety of poor health symptoms and death in humans.

Out of these infections, worm infections and tuberculosis are considered the most commonly encountered in diseased offal and are most easily identified in Nigerian abattoirs and meat markets.

 WORMY WORMS

Worms are infectious parasites that cause harm by either taking nutrients meant for your body, sucking your blood, and/or destroying vital organs in the body. Worms can infect both humans and animals alike and as such can be transferred from animals to humans by consuming infected meat or offal. Depending on the type of worm, worms (and their eggs) can be present in almost any organ (meat or offal), but can be mostly found in small and large intestine, liver, lungs, kidney, and heart. Examples of worms that infect animals and can be transmitted to humans include tapeworms, flukeworms and roundworms. These worms are very dangerous to humans especially children, pregnant women and people with low immunity, causing a variety of clinical signs such as stomach pains, diarrhea, vomiting, weight loss and poor growth, cough, anemia, edema, and death. In severe cases, they reproduce and are highly populated in the person’s intestine such that they block the intestinal lumen or cause extensive damage to the body’s vital organs such



As shown in this video, we advocate that for your health’s sake, be vigilant and careful on the kind of meat you eat. Protect yourself from infections in infected meat

More importantly, since we don’t currently have an enforcement of rules and regulations for meat inspection and meat hygiene in Nigeria, you must cook your meat and offal very well to ensure that to the best of your ability, pathogens are killed and rendered inactive in your body. Note that cooking your meat does not kill all pathogens as some pathogens remain resistant to heat and can still be transmitted to humans by consuming the infected meat. Also, remember that although some animals, meat and offal may seem healthy to eat; some may be harboring infections and parasites that are yet to physically manifest and be recognized.

This is a time to unite and advocate for an enforced standardized process of meat hygiene in Nigeria. A lot is going on in these abattoirs that is currently affecting the health of Nigerians and if care is not taken, we might soon have an epidemic and huge public health issue to contend with – if that is not already the case now.

Therefore, you can participate in our discussions on social media – Facebook, twitter and Instagram – using the hashtag #AbattoirNigeria. Together, we can work together to change this sad narrative in our abattoirs and poor meat hygiene, to get the government and stakeholders to be more proactive on this issue, and to know the basics of recognizing and distinguishing between good meat and bad meat. We need to know that as we are enjoying a bite from our delicious inu eran, we are also being guaranteed a healthy inu eran too.

Share and transfer this knowledge as much as you can and join the conversation with #AbattoirNigeria. Let us work together in achieving better food security and a healthier lifestyle for ourselves.

This investigative report is being supported by the Code4Africa #ImpactAfrica project