Wild animal meat - a lucky or harmful dish?

Many people say that eating wild boar, mink, and lizard meat brings good luck for the new year, but experts warn that they can be harmful to health. Is this true or false?

Consuming wild animal products poses many health risks. (Illustration).

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

However, consuming dishes from wild animals has many potential health risks , especially when eaters do not know the origin of this specialty. In fact, some dangerous pathogens still appear in wild animals and have the ability to cause disease in humans, such as the A/H5N1 influenza virus discovered in civet cats.

Wild birds can transmit many dangerous diseases such as H5N1 avian influenza virus, Ornithose disease (bird fever), Psittacose disease (parrot fever), diarrhea, cholera, dysentery, helminths, and Japanese encephalitis virus. .

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

In addition, if wild boar or other wild animals such as civets, muntjacs, and bamboos are not cooked, there is a potential risk of infection with helminths, leading to dangerous complications.

Doctor Le Van Thieu,
Department of General Infections, Central Tropical Diseases Hospital