Dr. Emmanuel Kwao Pecku, Municipal Veterinary Officer at the Kpone Katamanso Municipality says his outfit has not ban the consumption of pork in the municipality following the outbreak of African swine fever in pig farms in the Municipality.
“Last week I received a call that scores of pigs have died within two communities, Saki in the Kpone Katamanso. So we quickly rushed there to ascertain the situation and we took samples and conducted a laboratory test and the results came out that the pigs died of Africa swine fever,” he said on Plan B FM ‘Nkosuo Nsem’ with Ohene Addo.
“The virus doesn’t affect humans; it’s not zoonotic.The most important thing is the economic importance that is the spread which could be inimical to the pig industry. So when it happens like that, we focus on zoning the area then we ban the movement not the ban on consumption and aslo advise the farmers not to move affected pigs to the next community. This is done to stem it from further spread. As at now, in the whole world we have not had a potent vaccine to reduce the spread so what we can do is to advise the farmers to dig a hole, put the affected pigs in, and cover them with disinfectant. So that is the situation now; we’ve not ban the consumption of pork,” he intimated.
African swine fever is a contagious, viral disease that affects domestic pigs leading to high mortality. It does not affect people. It was first detected in the early 1900s in Africa.
Available data to Plan B FM indicates that the African swine fever was recorded for the first time in Ghana in September 1999. The outbreaks occurred in Greater Accra Region and parts of the Volta Region.
Government adopted stamping out measures to eradicate the infection, followed by intensified surveillance activities and a “sentinelization” process that came to an end in September 2000.
In October 2000, the Government declared Ghana free from the disease and infection and lifted the ban that had been imposed. During that outbreak, about 600 pigs were lost and 6,927 were slaughtered with compensation awarded to the owners.
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