Veterinary officers give livestock drug overdose
Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) country representative Alhaji M Jallow (L) and the director for animal industry at the Agriculture ministry, Dr Nicholas Kauta (C), pose besides a fridge donated by FAO in Kampala on Monday. PHOTO BY STEPHEN WANDERA.
KAMPALA.
Veterinary officers are giving livestock drug overdose due to old diagnosis machines and shortage of laboratory technicians, posing a health risk to milk and meat consumers, a senior Agriculture ministry official has said.
Dr Nicholas Kauta, the director of animal industry at the Agriculture ministry, on Monday said veterinary officers are working in a challenging environment that has forced them to treat livestock on guess work due to lack of diagnosed animal samples.
“Regional laboratories have old microscopes and poor staffing. There are veterinary officers at these laboratories but there are not enough laboratory technicians. If you build a laboratory, equip it and you do not recruit laboratory technicians, you are wasting resources. For instance, if an animal is suffering from a disease cause by ticks, a veterinary officer will have to treat the animal against all the four diseases caused by a tick. This is wastage of drugs, contamination of meat and milk due to lack of diagnosis,” he said.
Speaking at the handover of fridges, cool boxes for cold chain facilitation and computers to veterinary officers from six sub-regional laboratories in Masaka, Mbale, Arua, Kabarole, Mbarara and Lira districts, Dr Kauta said the equipment is to help monitor foot and mouth disease.
Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Country Representative Alhaji M Jallow, who handed over the equipment, said FAO has also procured diagnostic kits for the central laboratory at the National Animal Disease Diagnostics and Epidemiology Centre.
He said a draft risk based strategy for progressive control of foot and mouth disease has been developed and is ready for dissemination.
Uganda has had several foot and mouth disease outbreaks that has caused losses to farmers, with Karamoja sub-region being worst hit.
Under the Technical Cooperation Programme, FAO provided 200,000 doses of foot and mouth disease vaccine to the rest of the country, in addition to 280,000 doses of the same vaccine to Karamoja.
