By Chinyere Anyanwu
The Ogun State Ministry of Agriculture said it has strengthened its surveillance of abattoirs and slaughter slabs for detection and prevention of animal diseases, to forestall the outbreak of anthrax disease in the state.
The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Mr. Samuel Adeogun, dropped this hint 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 technologists, Hide and Skin officers and laboratory technologists, among others.
Adeogun said the training was 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 that anthrax is caused by the spore-forming bacterium, Bacillus anthracis, which primarily affects animals such as cattle, sheep and goats, noting that the disease could be contracted by humans who come in direct contact with infected animals or contaminated animal products such as meat, wool or hides.
“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 maximise the opportunity of this training as this will greatly impact on your service delivery”, Adeogun 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 Centre 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, adding 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 Areas of the state was to identify and ensure timely and accurate 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.