Stories by John Oba
Abuja
The federal government, through the Department of Veterinary and Pest Control Service, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, has commenced the development of a National Strategy document for the Control and Eradication of Peste Des Petits Ruminants (PPR) as part of efforts to solve the problem of this viral disease that has caused devastating impact to the economic value of the ruminants.
This is even as report from only ten states of the federation shows that states such as; Sokoto, Zamfara, Delta, Osun, Benue, Enugu, Kwara, Jigawa, Kano and Taraba experienced a total of over 24,000 outbreaks of PPR for the period of 2010 – 2016
The director of the department, Dr. Gideon Mshelbwala, stated this during the validation conference of the national strategy for the Control of Peste Des Petits Ruminants, held at Chelsea hotel, Abuja.
Mshelbwala, giving his remark said the strategy was developed by the department with inputs from a team of experts on PPR drawn from the faculties of Veterinary Medicine, Research Institutes and some field practitioners.
He said the aim of the conference was to launched the FAO-OIE PPR global control and eradication programme (PPR-GCEP);, adding that the workshop was expected to consider and conclude on inputs to the strategy document that is being developed
“The human population in Nigeria is growing and this is associated with corresponding increase in demand for food especially food of animal origin.
To meet this increasing demand, there is the need to increase the production and productivity of livestock in the country.
“Sheep and goats have been identified as one of the major livestock resource that can bridge this gap. They are excellence sources of meat, skins and also provide source for livelihood to the rural poor. It is reported that sheep and goats combined produce about 32% of meat which surpasses that produced by cattle which is about 22%.
“Sheep and goat rearing provides a source of livelihood and employed one million people directly or indirectly. Nigeria ranked 5th among the top 10 sheep and goat producers in the world,” he said.
He said the ruminants are adversely affected by several diseases of economic importance and the most devastating is the PPR, a viral disease with high morbidly and mortality rate of 45% and 40% respectively annually when it occurred.
