Despite Lassa Fever, Gari Consumers Keep Faith

Ordinarily, gari, a popular West African food made from fermented mashed cassava tuber is a common staple consumed by many. Even more eaten as snack is the white type, also known as “Ijebu Gari.” It is particularly and widely enjoyed with groundnuts, sugar and preferably milk with cold water.

Lately, however, gari has come under pressure. Consumers have become apprehensive of keeping it in their menu due to reports that it could be a vehicle for transferring the Lassa fever virus. This is due to fear of its being contaminated by the multimammate rat droppings implicated in the Lassa fever scourge in parts of Nigeria.

Lassa fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic illness caused by Lassa virus, transmitted to humans from contacts through food or other items contaminated with rat’s excreta.

However, feelers from traders and consumers may have painted a better picture of hope. A gari trader, Mrs. Helen Umukoro, said “Over the years, we have had a lot of stories that should have killed the love for this food item. Like taking soaked gari and mango immediately after could result to death, eating gari and coke would also result to death and drinking gari can make you go blind. These did not deter people from consuming it or even reduce the consumption of the product.

Now people are advised to resist having cold water gari ‘snack’ till there is a cure. How are we sure it is not even a myth.”

She added that gari sales have been going on fine, especially since she started advising her customers to refry before soaking it.

“When I heard about this Lassa fever, we were initially scared, until I started advising them to reheat the gari and let it cool before drinking to be on the safe side.

As we all know, soaking gari is a major snack in Nigeria and most poor people depend on it,” she said.

A student, Precious Nwogu, said he had to reheat gari before drinking, claiming Lassa fever cannot keep him down. He added that in school, drinking gari is the cheapest, fastest and easier meal to have, and cutting this off would be difficult.

A health expert, Mr. Isaac Ero, said people could consume the staple, if it has been heated, as the process would neutralise the Lassa virus.

According to him, “Lassa virus cannot survive under extreme heat, that is the reason why you can eat eba because it is made with hot water, which in most cases kills the virus. So if the infected part of the gari is well heated, by stirring the when frying then the virus would have been killed. So, the gari would be safe for drinking.”
He added that reheating the gari has no adverse effect on an individual as long as it is heated properly.