Co-designing zoonotic diseases prevention practices when people depend on wild meat

In the face of the escalating frequency of diseases emergences originating from wildlife, the development of reliable strategies for controlling zoonotic diseases transmission at the interface between wildlife and human is becoming a global priority. Rural communities whose subsistence is based on hunting for wild meat extraction are natural targets of such interventions, because of their regular contacts with wildlife. To date there have been few attempts at building preventive sanitary strategies taking into account the socioeconomic and institutional constraints in which wild meat systems operate. The study presented here, conducted in eastern Gabon, aimed at conceiving risk-reduction strategies of zoonotic diseases transmitted from wildlife in a two-phase approach, namely (1) an assessment phase, based on a survey on risk knowledge and practices conducted with members of communities living on wild meat, and (2) a co-design phase based on focus group discussions to identify acceptable prevention strategies aimed at limiting the contacts creating the major risks of exposure to zoonoses infections. The use of participatory methods aiming at eliciting issues and solutions from the participants, enabled the conception of strategies that were adapted to the context and well accepted by stakeholders at different stages, namely the track, capture, transport of wild animals, the butchering of carcasses, cooking and consumption process. However, some limitations to the effective application of the strategies can be anticipated notably because of (1) the current low and biased perception of zoonotic risks by wild meat actors, and (2) the economic incentives for maintaining risky behaviors like the capture and trade of live animals and the consumption or sale of animals found dead or displaying signs of disease infection.