Efforts at checkmating and reduce the scorge of animal diseases as well as increase livestock production is being adopted in Kaduna State.
Krestnews reports that nine Community Animal Healthcare Workers (CAHW) have been equipped with the requisite skills to address the menace in rural communities of Kaduna at affordable cost.
The participants being equipped are drawn from Chikun, Igabi, Kachia and Kubau Local Government Areas of the State and are expected to deliver quality animal health care services to rural farmers in their domain so reduce prevalence rate of livestock diseases and boost production and meat requirement in the State and country as a whole.
Speaking in an interview Kaduna, Programme Associate, Anbuyets Konsulta Nigeria Limited, Dr. Damilola Areo said the nine CAHW’s have been trained and certified by the Veterinary Council of Nigeria (VCN) to deliver treatment and vaccination for livestock including small ruminants, cattle and chicken.
According to her, the idea behind the CAHW is to get them closer to the farmers. “We pick them from the communities so that they go back and provide the services including vaccination, basic animal treatment among others to farmers in their communities.
“We have trained over 90 CAHW’s since inception in 2021 for a duration of two weeks inline with the VCN criteria. We got support from Alliance for Sustainable Livestock to carry out a sensitisation for them and also a vaccination campaign to selected communities.”
She disclosed that vaccination campaign exercises will take place from 30th January to 10th February, 2024 in selected communities to sensitise farmers on the need to vaccinate their animals as prevention is better than cure.
“They will be creating awareness on diseases like Food and Mouth Disease (FMD), Contagious Bouine Pleuropneumonia (CBPP), Anthrax, Newcastle and Peste des Petits Ruminants (PPR) as these are diseases that are endemic to the region.
“They are also going to be supporting the State Government with disease reports by uploading disease records on an application when they come in contact with a particular disease, thereby informing the government of the prevalent diseases in various communities for better planning.
“We expect that by the CAHW’s service delivery, they will be able to contribute to disease control and prevention and increase livestock production in their communities because when there are no diseases, the farmer will be able to get more from the animal be it milk, meat and others, this will also increase the farmers economic value,” she stressed