Anthrax: Lagos Sensitizes Butchers, Meat Merchants On The Dangers
The Lagos State government has recently begun a sensitization programme for butchers, meat merchants as well as other stakeholders in the red meat value chain on the importance of curbing infections and the spread of communicable diseases, especially anthrax.
Abisola Olusanya, Commissioner for Agriculture in the state, while speaking at the opening ceremony of the workshop at the Johnson Agiri Centre in Oko-Oba, Agege, said in view of the fact that Anthrax is a Zoonotic disease that negatively impacts affected animals and human population, the state government, as a proactive measure, set up a standing committee with the mandate of carrying out active surveillance of the disease in livestock across the state immediately after its outbreak was reported in Ghana earlier this year.
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She said Lagos being a major livestock-receiving, recorded the incidence of the disease in two local government areas of the state in July 2023, that this necessitated the activation of Public Health Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) on Anthrax domiciled at the Ministry of Health with a robust One-Health interplay of Human Health and Animal Health Components to curtail the spread of the disease.
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“This was followed by the immediate vaccination of the ruminant flock population across the five administrative divisions of the state with Anthrax spore vaccine from the National Veterinary Research Institute.
She stated that to date, 12,115 animals have been covered by Anthrax prophylactic vaccination in the state and that the exercise is still ongoing.
On the importance of the workshop, she said it would help the stakeholders to understand the importance of anthrax and have the right requirements in terms of protective gear and clothing so that they can prevent the transfer from the animals to themselves.
Dr. Adetunji Jolaosho, a veterinary public health expert who is the trainer for the workshop, said that the training will be done in the three major languages for the participants to understand the danger of anthrax.
According to him, what makes anthrax especially dangerous is that it can stay in the soil and remain there for decades.
