Health ministry takes sensitization campaign to abattoir

By Doosuur Iwambe, Abuja

In its bid to ensure the supply of healthy meat and other livestock products for public consumption in Nigeria, the Federal Ministry of Health in collaboration with the National Food Safety Management Committee on Thursday took its sensitization of food handlers to Karu Abattoir, a satellite town in the FCT.

Addressing journalists after inspecting the facilities, the NFSMC Consultant, John Tehinse appealed to the management of abattoirs in Nigeria to desist from using tyres and other form of rubbers to burn the cow skin popularly referred to as ‘pomu’, saying it causes cancer.

Tehinse, who expressed regrets that abattoirs in the country do not meet the minimum operating standards to guarantee food safety, said the abattoir is a key sector since the journey of the meat people eat begins from there.

“We have come to a particular sector that is key in the area of food safety, which is meat. Every one of us eats meat and the journey of the meat we eat starts from here. If the meat is unsafe there is nothing the housewife can do to it, there is nothing anybody can do to it. This is the most primary place where we can begin to build safety into our meat.

“Recently, somebody was giving a lecture on tuberculosis in meat where he said it was becoming very rampart. Another major food safety is the slaughter of sick animals for sale and people buying unknowingly for consumption. Another food safety is the way the meat is usually transported to the market with all manner of gross contamination.

“I have seen where meat is transported in wheelbarrows, taxis, motorcycles and on the head of individuals. This is the worst treatment we can give to food safety. That is why we are appealing to the veterinary doctors that these are the things given us a lot of headache as far as keeping food safety is concerned,’’ he said.

The National Coordinator, Food Safety and Quality Programme in the health ministry, Fubara Chuku, said that the visit was part of its move to ensure that the sector which is very special meets the standard procedure as practiced globally.

He urged butchers to put the structure into proper use under a good hygienic condition, adding that it was significant following cases of diseases associated with meat processing.

‘’Food can be contaminated at any stage, this is why we must buy food that has been safely processed and we must handle it with care,’’ he said.

Similarly, Mrs. Stella Denloye, Country Officer, Partnership for Aflatoxic Control in Africa (PACAP) who said that aflatoxin cannot be killed totally killed in food added that they come out in the milk of the cow and they come back to affect human beings thereby causing cancer.

Meanwhile, a vetenary doctor Dr. Augustine Elah, mentioned some of the challenges they face at the abattoir to include insecurity, unhealthy environment, butcher’s illiteracy amongst others.

“When the meat we slaughter is unsafe, every other thing we do afterwards are unsafe because some of the organisms that grow have the process of making toxins; once the toxins has started developing, it does not matter the amount of cooking you do to it. We are appealing that we join hands together to incorporate food safety into here,” the doctor stated.