By Politico staff writer
After completing laboratory examinations and analyses on the causes of death of 36 cattle within the country, the Ministry of Agriculture’s (MOA) team in Liberia has denied the discovery of infectious animals to human diseases including anthrax or brucellosis.
A press release issued by the Agriculture Ministry on the 19th of July, 2023 emphasized that no disease was found among the dead cattle tested in Foya District where the alleged outbreak was reported.
It stated that 36 of 69 cattle flocked in the same field were found dead on the 6th of July, 2023 in the Northwestern Liberian town of Kelima Bendu within the Foyah District, Lofa County near the Guinean and Sierra Leonean borders.
The release added that immediately after the alleged outbreak was announced, the MOA’s technicians in collaboration with the coordinated inter-governmental One Health Platform comprising of the Ministry of Health, National Public Health Institute, and the Environmental Protection Agency moved to the scene to investigate the sudden livestock deaths.
The release however noted that the Platform together with technical backstopping from the World Bank Regional Disease Surveillance and Enhancement Project, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and the World Health Organization, worked on the examinations and analyses of collected samples. The technical team collected blood and soil samples from the dead and survivors where remains were found, examined, and analyzed at the MOA’s Central Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory.
“All tests conducted on samples collected came negative of anthrax, brucellosis and for other water parameters,” part of the findings state.
The findings according to the press release also disclosed that “even though all samples tested came out negative, the cattle death is attributed to severe lightning strikes which residents in the town confirmed occurred the night before the cattle were discovered dead in the morning.”
It concluded that lightning strike is a common cause of mass deaths of cattle in many sub-Saharan countries which animal health practitioners have scientifically proven from several studies.
Earlier reports this month from Liberia about the discovery of a cluster of dead cattle in the neighbouring country prompted the instituting of preventive measures by Sierra Leone’s Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, along border districts with that country.
Livestock markets in Kailahun, Kenema, and Pujehun Districts were ordered to close down and the movement of meat and meat products from Liberia into Sierra Leone was prohibited.
Copyright © Politico (21/07/23)
