vet officers tasked to prevent livestock diseases

Back page, October 31/2008

Story: Charles Benoni Okine

THE 17th congress and 34th annual general meeting of the Ghana Veterinary Medical Association opened in Accra yesterday, with a call on the Veterinary Service Directorate to effectively deal with the prevention and control of diseases that affect livestock.
The Vice-President, Alhaji Aliu Mahama, who made the call, said diseases affecting livestock could have a devastating impact on animal productivity and asked the directorate not to lay back as diseases destroyed the country’s livestock.
The three-day conference, which is being attended by professionals in the veterinary medical practice from all over the country, is on the theme: “Control of emerging and re-emerging animal diseases in an environment of global warming - A challenge to the veterinary profession”.
The Vice-President said the impact of socio-economic losses due to outbreaks of emerging and re-emerging trans-boundary animal diseases included the dramatic reduction of herds and flocks through natural deaths and animals being culled to prevent the spread of disease to other farms.
He said this was the case when 13,371 birds died naturally of avian influenza, while another 27,356 birds were culled, bringing the total number of birds lost through Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza outbreaks in the country in April, May and June of last year to 40,727.
Alhaji Mahama said emerging and re-emerging disease outbreaks led to importing countries applying restrictions and total bans on products due to diseases such as foot and mouth diseases, which made some farmers to stop livestock production altogether.
In his welcoming address, Dr Kwasi Bowi Darkwa, president of the association, recounted an array of problems that the association was facing and mentioned for instance that in the Northern Region, the Bole District veterinary clinic was now the office of the District Director of Agriculture, while Yendi clinic was now occupied by the Bureau of National Investigations.
“The newly built Tamale veterinary clinic has been taken over by the Metro Director of Agriculture and his staff. The once imposing veterinary office in Damongo has also been taken over by the District Director of Agriculture,” he said, adding, “As a matter of fact, the list of takeovers of the veterinary properties in the country is endless.”
It was against this background among other things that Dr Darkwa asked whether Ghana now needed an effective and vibrant veterinary service as existed in the 1960s and 1970s.
He said now that the world was now a global village, consumerism and free trade among nations were conducive to the spread of diseases, particularly with the emerging and re-emerging diseases due to climate change.
Dr Darkwa said Ghana needed more veterinarians and veterinary technicians to cope with the challenge and cited the recent avian influenza as an example.
He indicated the need to decouple veterinary service from mainstream agriculture in order to improve service delivery.
“There should be a structure in place where veterinary officers in the districts are directly supervised by more senior vets in the regions,” he added.