Cabinet has approved the recruitment of 1,100 Veterinary professionals and the release of emergency support fund of GH¢43.9million to combat the current outbreaks of the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) in the country.
The intervention is also to strengthen institutional capacity and readiness of the Veterinary Service Directorate (VSD) of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) for any future incidence at least in the next five years.
The Minister of Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, who disclosed this at a press conference in Accra yesterday said the decision followed a request by the ministry occasioned by acute staffing problem and inadequate existing logistics of the VSD.
“The situation poses a major challenge to the VSD in its containment efforts to stem the spread of the current HPAI which outbreak was confirmed in July 2021. Similar cases of the HPAI disease has been reported in the sub-region raising concerns about a possible ravaging effect onGhana’s poultry industry,” he said.
Dr Akoto said cabinet directed that 550 (50 per cent) of the veterinary professionals should be immediately recruited with the remaining 50 percent covered over a two-year period (2023 and2024).
He said the emergency funding would cover procurement of 33 cross country 4X4 vehicles; 275motorcycles; compensation payments to farmers; active disease surveillance of domestic and wild birds’ population and public awareness creation on the situation of the HPAI.
He said it would also cater for training and capacity building for existing and newly recruited staff; nationwide engagement with key stakeholders; stamping out, decontamination and disposal materials among others.
To ensure effective implementation of an action plan developed for containing the HPAI, he said, a nine-member Ministerial committee with membership drawn from allied institutions would be established immediately to oversee operations, with support by a three member committee at the regional and district levels for coordination, monitoring and evaluation purposes.
Giving an update of the HPAI, he said, within four months of the current outbreak of the HPAI in Ghana in 2021, seven regions; Greater Accra,Central, Volta, Western North,Ashanti, Western and Upper West had so far been affected with 261,137 birds destroyed through culling (198,201) and natural deaths (62,933) at 79 farms.
He said experts had projected that at the current rate of spread, the disease will infect about 300,000 farm birds necessitating their destruction by December 2021, if government fails to intervene thus the urgent intervention.
The Acting Director Dr Patrick Abakeh of the VSD said GH¢17 million had been budgeted for compensation of farmers whose birds had been or would be destroyed by December this year with GH¢635, 000 for farmers who were not paid in the 2015 outbreak when their birds were destroyed.
He said the recruitment would enhance the work of the directorate because it was operating at 10 per cent of its human resources with the new regions lacking veterinary officers.
He assured that the logistics and human resources would be shared equitably and thanked the government for responding to its needs to enable it effectively manage the virus.
BY JONATHAN DONKOR
