By Mabinty M. Kamara
Hundreds of pigs are reported to have died in what seems like an epidemic in Sierra Leone.
The mysterious deaths of the animals have raised public health concerns amidst reports that their meat is being sold to unsuspecting buyers in markets across Freetown.
In Sierra Leone, pigs are mostly reared in slum communities along the coastal capital of Freetown. Politico visited four of these communities - Kroo Bay, Kolleh Town, Moa Warf and Portee Warf, where worried pig owners expressed fears over the economic impact of the situation on their livelihoods. Some have already lost their entire pens, while others are struggling to deal with the sick animals.
In Kolleh Town, pig owners say they have lost over 300 pigs in the last three weeks.
David Cole is struggling to come to terms with the loss of almost his entire pigsty of 40 pigs. As of Wednesday he had only one left, which was already sick. Cole has been rearing pigs for the last seven years.
"This thing started about three weeks ago and to date now we have lost over 300 pigs, including 39 of mine out of 40, with the exception of this one that is also waiting to die," he narrated, pointing to the lone pig in an almost empty pen in his backyard.
Cole bemoaned the fact that since the seeming outbreak started no government official had visited them.
Mohamed Kamara, youth chairman at the Moa Warf Community confirmed to Politico that the incident has also affected his community as they have lost almost all their pigs.
“Our only source of finance has been destroyed in just a short period. We keep these pigs so that we can sell and make money from them, especially now that the Christmas season is approaching. We can sell one for over Le1,000,000 ($100) to solve our personal problems without relying on any politician or disturbing anyone else,” he said.
Although in Portee there was no report of any sick animal, there is widespread fear among the community people that they may be next. Chernor Kamara, who owns over 100 pigs in Portee, called on the government to act fast and save their livelihoods.
In all four communities, the people lamented the apparent failure of the government to respond swiftly to their predicament.
They said since they began realizing the mysterious death affecting their animals, no government official had visited them to even investigate the matter.
But Politico learnt that the issue was discussed in the weekly meeting of the Joint Emergency Operations Center of the Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MoHS) on Wednesday, 16 October.
Mukeh Kenneth Fahnbulleh, Public Health Emergencies Manager at the MoHS, said the committee instructed the Ministry of Agriculture to ascertain the true picture of the situation on the ground and report to them within 48 hours.
In Sierra Leone, while the MoHS is responsible for human health, the Agriculture ministry is responsible for animal health. And both ministries work in a collaborative approach under the government’s One Health policy and the global health security agenda.
Fahnbulleh said only Animal heath could provide a serious diagnosis of what was happening with the pigs at the moment.
“We expected that after today the surveillance manager will follow up with them, latest next tomorrow (Friday October 18), they should actually be able to tell us a story we can believe. We are expecting that after the meeting they should have deployed their surveillance officers to actually ascertain the fact,” he said.
Fahnbulleh said the immediate concern of the health ministry at the moment was reports that the meat of the dead pigs was already in the market.
Kolleh Town community chairman, Kaprr Kargbo, attested to the fact that the dead meat was sold, but noted that this was when the animals started dying. He said they had since stopped people from eating or selling the meat.
"Initially when it started, people used to sell the dead pigs but as time went by we realized the seriousness of the issue, everybody got afraid of eating or selling it, so we throw it away immediately the animal dies," he said.
Despite Kargbo’s statement that the meat was no longer sold in the market, there is a real danger that whatever is killing the pigs might transfer to humans, considering the fact that the dead carcass of the sick animals is not disposed of properly.
However, other sources Politico interviewed confirmed that the meat was still being sold. They killed the animals immediately they suspected they were ill.
One pig owner in Kolleh Town, who preferred anonymity, had a freezer full of the meat, as was seen by this reporter.
© 2019 Politico Online
