Deadly Virus in your meat
Malawians may silently and unsuspectingly be dying from diseases acquired from meat, milk consumption and animals due to government’s neglect, Nation on Sunday has established.
Our investigations show that poor funding to the Ministry of Agriculture’s animal and livestock management, inadequate trained personnel and broken livestock infrastructures to deal with diseases of domesticated animals are exposing Malawians to diseases.
These challenges have made it difficult for veterinary experts to carry out animal and meat inspections, thereby exposing humans to contagious disease infested products that unsuspecting Malawians consume or catch from unhealthy beasts, our investigations show.
For example, an annual report by Blantyre Agriculture Development Division (ADD)—which consists Blantyre, Mwanza,Neno, Chirad
The ADD also inspected 41 066 goat meat, 671 sheep meat and 19 764 pig meat—figures that a senior government animal expert has said are too low compared to the undocumented animals that are slaughtered in cities, towns and villages and sold to people without authorities’ inspection.
An expert, currently working with the Ministry of Agriculture; hence, did not want to be mentioned, said the inadequate inspection means that Malawians are under threat of acquiring animal diseases because the country has weak animal health laws and policies to respond to animal diseases.
“There might not be any statistics out there, but those living with HIV are living dangerously exposed when they are living close to animals. The increase in cases of tuberculosis and coccidioidomycosis [a type of meningitis] would be attributed to animals,” he said.
Tuberculosis and coccidioidomycosis can be acquired from cattle and poultry products.
Vaccination is another major problem.
In the Blantyre ADD case study, out of 2 778 cattle that were targeted for foot and mouth vaccination, none was vaccinated; 20 798 head of cattle were targeted for lumpy skin disease vaccination, but only 2 512 or 12 percent were vaccinated.
The division did better with chicken as out of 1 870 000 targeted for Gumboro vaccination, 1 500 388 were reached, representing 83 percent achievement whereas of the 6 966 160 poultry targeted for Newcastle vaccination, 4 738 701 or 71 percent were vaccinated.
The ADD also targeted to vaccinate 132 936 dogs and cats, but only vaccinated 64 633, leaving 52 percent of the animals unprotected while out of 600 cattle targeted for rabies, only 190 or 32 percent were vaccinated.
Then there is the problem of infrastructure for managing livestock’s health.
For example, Blantyre ADD has 34 strategic dip tanks and out of those 21 are in a functional state, but only 14 are delivering service.
Says the ADD report: “There is lack of sustainability in dipping services in some dip tanks, poor group management and inefficient financial management.”
In an interview, head of livestock in Shire Valley ADD, Feston Naveya, said poor funding is affecting the fight of diseases in his division although they have intensified training of farmers to identify animal diseases.
“Our proposed budget for fighting diseases this year was K12 million. We have only been given K4.5 million. This puts pressure on us, however, we are lucky in the Shire Valley ADD because there are private companies that are interested in livestock who are working hand in hand with us,” he said.
At national level, animal and livestock management is a neglected child in terms of funding compared to the favouriteoffspring, crop production and management.
Of the K118.7 billion 2013/14 annual budget for the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, just K2.8 billion or about 2.4 percent of the ministry’s total allocation goes to animal and livestock management
On the other hand, crop production and management is fattened with a K66.7 billion bounty, consuming nearly half of the ministry’s total allocation, of which K60 billion goes to the Farm Input Subsidy Programme (Fisp).
Put differently, the animal budget is just four percent of what its crop cousins get, yet on the family dining table, it is rare to have a meal without the other. And unvaccinated and uninspected animal meat is consumed, posing health risks.
Bunda College head of animal science Dr Fanny Chigwa says the low funding towards animal health is a predisposing factor that may lead people to consume meat, which has diseases. She, however, notes that: “not all animal diseases can be transferred to humans.”
Her colleague, Bunda College of Agriculture animal health expert Dr Oliver Bakili said in an interview last week that in the absence of vaccination against diseases that attack animals, people that are close to animals or eat meat that has contagious diseases are endangered.
“Zoonoses are infections naturally transmissible between vertebrate animal hosts and humans. Transmission maybe direct or via food and water, for example, rabies, rift valley fever and anthrax. I would say rabies is the commonest zoonotic infection and is 100 percent fatal,” he said in an e-mail response.
Bakili said most of the zoonoses are viruses and most of them have no cure.
A zoonosis is an infectious disease that is transmitted between species from animals other than humans to humans or from humans to other animals.
Researchers that reviewed 1 415 pathogens—the viruses that cause diseases in man—known to infect humans, found that 61percent of the pathogens were zoonotic.
Ministry of Health spokesperson Henry Chimbali said his ministry is aware of diseases that can be transmitted from animals to humans and advises people to avoid such situations.
“We do not have tools specifically to monitor these conditions because most of them appear already in our facilities’ registers. We also know that there are certain animal- to-human transmissible diseases that cannot be passed over to another human as well,” he said.
Chimbali said diseases such as rabies are passed from animals to humans and humans can also pass them on to other humans.
He also said diseases such as bovine TB (TB of the cows) can be passed to humans from cows but human beings cannot pass over the bovine TB to another human just as it was with the H1N1 influenza or bird flu.
“When it comes to such diseases, we collaborate with related departments or ministries to work out from both sides on how to control and treat the diseases in both animals and humans,” Chimbali said.
Director of Animal Health in the Ministry of Agriculture Dr Ben Chimera admitted that the ministry is facing challenges in fighting animal diseases and said the country is losing millions of kwacha due to death of domesticated animals.
“African swine fever can wipe out all pigs, east coast fever kills and is a big constraint in cattle farming, especially in the Centre and North and Newcastle disease of chickens wipes out 80 percent of [Malawi’s] chickens every year.
“TB and rabies are the commonest zoonoses; they can only be passed on to humans by bite in case of rabies and by consumption of raw milk and milk in case of TB,” he said.
Chimera, however, said medicine for animal diseases are readily available and can be accessed at all veterinary clinics and from assistant veterinary officers near all dip tanks, as stocking of animal medicine was decentralised.
But he admitted that there is a shortage of qualified veterinary surgeons and assistant veterinary officers.
In its report, Blantyre ADD bemoaned lack of resources as one of the challenges in the fight against animal diseases
“There is a high non- reported cases of animal disease in the ADD because of understaffing at districts and EPA [Area Planning Areas] levels, inadequate means of transport at all levels, poor record keeping at the farmers and field staff level, and chronic challenges of diseases such as mastitis, hypocalcaemia and milk fever,” reads the report in part.
In the last financial year, the ADD said it lost 9 483 pigs estimated at K75.9 million and lost chickens worth K67.3 million to African swine fever and Newcastle diseases, respectively.
“It is envisaged that farmer to veterinary officer interfacing is low mainly due to inadequate number of field staff. This impinges on the smooth delivery of livestock extension services,” adds the report.
Treasury outlines Sadc Summit hosting benefits
REX CHIKOKO
Treasury says hosting the 33rd Southern African Development Community (Sadc) Summit may have brought fiscal burdens to government, but it was worth the sacrifice.
Treasury spokesperson Nations Msowoya said in an interview on Wednesday that while the Ministry of Finance cannot quantify the benefits of hosting the summit at this stage, he believes the fruits are many.
Last week, government conceded that Sadc costs, plus a K1 billion emergency advance from Treasury to the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC), has destabilised public finances, forcing the Ministry of Finance to halve monthly public service funding to government ministries, departments and agencies.
Public financial pressure aside, Msowoya argued on Wednesday: “As Ministry of Finance, we may not exactly quantify immediately the specific benefits. The summit delegates were able to buy goods and services such as airtime, taxi services, sleep in our hotels and eat in various restaurants. [Delegates] were able to bring their currency and exchange it with the Malawi kwacha.”
He explained that the benefits were spread out to different aspects of the economy, including farming as hotels that hosted delegates bought their food supplies such as beef, rice and fruits from Malawian farmers, thereby bringing multiplier effects to the economy.
“Therefore, farmers from across these industries were able to sell more. In economics, we call such linkages backward and forward linkages. That is, the Sadc summit increased demand for goods and services [and] as a result, industries that supply raw materials to other industries such as hotels benefitted. If business activities pick up, it means people pay more taxes through VAT [value added tax] to government,” he said.
Msowoya said what government also did was to provide opportunities for business.
For example, he said, to cater for delegates, government secured car hire, catering and printing services, which contributed to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) while the Sadc summit enabled consumption, investment, net trade and government spending added to national output.
Apart from the direct and indirect gains to the country, Msowoya said Malawi is also obliged to host Sadc meetings when its turn comes.
He said refusing to host Sadc meetings would mean that government is questioning the values and ethos for which the regional grouping was established.
On his part, Malawi Tourism Association executive director Sam Botomani said the summit was a give and take affair.
Botomani cited foreign exchange that delegates brought into the country as well as international goodwill as the up sides of hosting the meeting.
On the downside, Botomani said there were some hidden costs that the country incurred during the meeting that would be difficult to quantify.
“For example, roads were closed around the area where the meetings were taking place. Imagine how many times they closed the road to the airport and how they inconvenienced people,” he said.
He said next time government considers hosting such high profile events they must consider not only accommodation facilities but also roads to ensure smooth mobility.
“People were inconvenienced. Malawi road network is very poor to host such events,” said Botomani.
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