Dr. Elia Lomuro, the South Sudanese Minister for Animal Resources and Fisheries speaking to Gurtong [©Gurtong]
By Waakhe Simon Wudu
JUBA, 5th February 2012 [Gurtong] - The South Sudanese Minister of Animal Resources and Fisheries Dr. Martin Elia Lomuro has warned all Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) specialised in livestock health over providing fake vaccines.
Dr. Elia Lomuro who spoke to Gurtong during an interview in Juba said that, a number of organizations including the United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), VS Belgium among others are involved in importing livestock vaccines into the country.
“I visited 5 States deep into the small villages to assess the situation, first of all the vaccines the herders use have expired and not stored in required temperatures. Some of them have very short expiry dates while others are inappropriate,” the minister said.
“This month there is going to be a clear policy; we will ban any organization importing vaccines, drugs without clearance from the Ministry of Animal Resources. It will be a crime,” said Dr. Lomuro.
He said that, the government has finalized working on the Ministry’s new policy draft aimed at taking over full control of an epidemiological survey, disease control program and import and export of any animal medicines/vaccine into the Country.
Lomuro estimated South Sudan to have at least 12,000,000 herds of cattle. The United Nations has estimated 2.7million herds of cattle in the country to be infected with various diseases. However, the Minister has disagreed with the figure saying it could be higher.
The animal minister added that, in the new policy strategy to be released this month, “we will have a public calendar one month before time so that all livestock are brought to one centre in various areas. We also intend to establish a logical population census for all the livestock which currently no one knows.”
He pointed out that cattle reared in South Sudan are mostly prone to; food and mouth disease, rinder pest among many other diseases but the East Coast Fever is the most alarming disease.