Liberia gets help in ensuring safe meat consumption
The sanitary conditions in the Liberian abattoirs and the sale of unsafe meat for human consumption has become a major concern to the country's Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) - Emergency Center for Transboundary Animal Diseases (ECTAD). The absence of sufficient number of qualified meat inspectors coupled with limited number of slaughtering facilities in the country poses a great threat to ensuring the safety of the public health.
Due to these facts, FAO and MoA, with financial support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), organized a three-day capacity enhancement training for 24 livestock and quarantine officers as well as staff from Cuttington University, on the basic principles of meat inspection to ensure safe and wholesome meat for public consumption.
The training highlighted best practices in ante-mortem and post-mortem examination of animals and carcasses in slaughterhouses. Participants also acquired knowledge and understanding on meat handling and hygiene as well as zoonotic diseases identification and detection at abattoirs.
In his speech, Joseph Anderson, Chief Veterinary Officer at MoA, warned about the huge capacity gap among quarantine officers, especially in animal health and meat inspection, which resulted to poor coordination between livestock and quarantine officers at border entry points. He also described the training session as "an opportunity for the livestock and quarantine officers to work collectively to ensure proper inspection of meat is carried out for the good of the community".
In his remarks, Dr. Abebe Wolde, ECTAD Country Team Leader in Liberia mentioned that the main purpose of meat inspection is to detect and prevent public health hazards such as food-borne pathogens and zoonotic diseases that could be transmitted from animals to human. “As you are aware, 60% of human pathogens are originating from animals and 75% of emerging and re-emerging diseases originate from animals. We, animal health and livestock professionals have a responsibility in keeping the health of livestock, and the livelihood of those who are dependent on the animals as well as the safety of the consumer”. According to CIA notes on Liberia, some of the major infectious diseases are food or waterborne and consists of bacterial and protozoal diarrhea, hepatitis A, and typhoid fever.
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