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The need for stakeholders in animal husbandry to be duly educated on good farm management practices has been emphasized.
A Professor of Veterinary Public Health and Preventive Medicine at the University of Ilorin, Nusirat Elelu, made this call while delivering the 283rd Inaugural lecture of the University, titled ”The Public Health Veterinarian Through Ticks, Snails, and Community Service”.
Prof. Elelu pointed out that adequate enlightenment of the farmers in practices such as bio-security, vector control, animal vaccination and waste management, would reduce transmission of animal diseases to humans.
She identified ticks as the second largest carriers of human diseases after mosquitoes, and snails as intermediate carriers of parasites such as blood flukes, lung flukes, rumen and liver flukes.
The inaugural lecturer, who highlighted the widespread implications of animal health on human health and wellbeing, stated that the health of the human population is closely connected with the health of animals in the environments they live in.
According to her, more than 70% of the emerging or re-entering diseases that have affected humans over the past Twenty years are transmitted from animals.
Prof. Elelu, who is also the Executive Secretary of the Kwara State Primary Health Care Development Agency, said the deadly rabies virus transmitted from from infected animals, especially dogs, has been classified as the eleventh killer disease of the world.
She listed other diseases such as rabies virus, yellow fever epidemics, anthrax disease, bubonic plague, and salmonellosis as diseases that are of animal origins, cautioning against consuming meats and animal products in their raw or partially cooked states.
“Historically, diseases of humans that have been documented to be of animal origin include: the bubonic plague, transmitted by rats flea that killed estimated 50 million people in Europe, Asia and Africa in the 14th Century; the deadly rabies virus transmitted from infected animals, especially dogs, which has been classified as the eleventh killer killer disease of the world, killing 100,000 people annually mainly in Africa and Asia, ” she stated.
Prof. Nusirat Elelu, therefore, recommended that to prevent animal to human disease transmission, there is need for sustainable surveillance programme involving veterinary and medical experts, improved health information and communication, regulatory framework for health information among others, to be put in place.
Sola Rotimi
