Vendors' perceptions on the bushmeat trade dynamics across West Africa during the COVID-19 pandemic: lessons learned on sanitary measures and awareness campaigns

In West Africa, the bushmeat trade is a major societal issue with contrasting implications on biodiversity, health and economy. We studied perceptions of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the bushmeat trade dynamics through questionnaires addressed to 377 vendors across three West African countries. We showed that bushmeat vendors constitute a socio-economic category driven by ethnicity and gender bias, engaged in profitable, long-term careers. There was a general consensus among vendors that the COVID-19 pandemic and related governmental measures had a negative impact on their activities and the number of clients, a cost still perceived as visible at the time of the survey. However, we observed large discrepancies among the national trade dynamics relative to the constraints of the pandemic. Cote d'Ivoire was hardly hit by the bushmeat ban and perceived governmental measures as rather negative, whereas Cameroon generally did not report a temporary stop of bushmeat activities and engaged in the stockpiling of pangolins, and Benin mostly suffered from a weakened supply chain. Because such differences are rooted in the geography and political agenda of each country, predicting the impact of mitigation measures on the global dynamics of bushmeat markets might be an unrealistic task if national specificities are not taken into account. West African vendors generally did not believe that pangolins were involved in the pandemic, for the reason that people have always been eating pangolins and have never been sick. We recommend that future awareness campaigns through television and social networks also include education on microbial evolution and host shift.