By Ademola Orunbon
The Ogun State Ministry of Agriculture has enhanced the surveillance of abattoirs and slaughter slabs to detect and prevent the spread of animal diseases, as well as to forestall the outbreak of Anthrax disease in the state.
The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Mr. Samuel Adeogun said this in Abeokuta, at a three-day training organised by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD), with the support of World Bank’s Reddies project and Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) for veterinary officers, animal health technologist, Hide and Skin officers, and laboratory technologist among others.
Adeogun said the training is aimed at building the capacity of officers regarded as surveillance agents across the state, as a step towards preventing the outbreak of Anthrax and other emerging or re-emerging zoonotic disease.
He noted that it would also broaden the knowledge of participants in early detection, containment and control of the outbreak of any animal disease, as outbreak of anthrax was recently confirmed in Niger and Lagos States.
He said Anthrax is caused by the spore-forming bacterium, Bacillus anthracis, which primarily affects animals, such as cattle, sheep, and goats, noting that disease could be contracted by humans who come in direct contact with infected animals or contaminated animal products, such as meat, wool, or hides.
“Indeed, Anthrax may be contracted through the inhalation of spores, while cutaneous anthrax can result from contact with contaminated materials or through open wounds.
“So, you should maximize the opportunity of this training as this will greatly impacting on your service delivery”, he said.
He explained that the adoption of One Health Approach was a preventive measure which involves the coming together of critical stakeholders in public health, such as the Ministry of Agriculture, Health and Environment to mitigate, prevent and control disease outbreak in animal population, stressing that Anthrax Emergency Operation Center has also been constituted in the state.
Also speaking, the State Coordinator, Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Dr. (Mrs) Toyin Ayo-Ajayi revealed that the training was to further strengthen disease detection in the state, describing surveillance agents as disease detectives, added that the federal government has made available vaccines to states that already recorded the outbreak.
The Lead Facilitator, Dr. Taiwo Olasoju stressed that the training of Surveillance agents across the 20 Local Government of the state was to identify and ensure timely and accurately reportage of animal disease .
Responding on behalf of participants, the Chief Veterinary Officer, Dr. Akeba Emmanuel, and Chief Animal Health Technologist, Mrs. Felicia Oremuyiwa lauded the organisers, assuring that the knowledge acquired at the training would help them in their surveillance and improve reportage of animal disease.
