Anthrax: FG donates 100,000 doses of vaccines to Ekiti govt

The Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security has donated 100,000 doses of anthrax vaccines to the Ekiti government.

The donation by the ministry was through the Livestock Productivity and Resilience Support (L-PRES) project.

The Ekiti Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Security, Ebenezer Boluwade, who received the doses of vaccines on Thursday in Ado-Ekiti, said the donation was to strengthen animal health services.

The commissioner said the state implementation unit of L-PRES has been sensitising stakeholders in the beef/dairy, pig, and sheep/goat value chains on the need to vaccinate their animals against anthrax disease.

Mr Boluwade described anthrax as a very serious zoonotic disease that needs to be prevented before outbreaks.

He said further that the state would carry out a massive vaccination programme targeted at preventing the outbreak of the disease.

In his remarks, the state L-PRES Project Coordinator (SPC), Olayinka Adedipe, lauded the federal ministry for making Ekiti the first state to receive the anthrax vaccines.

Mr Adedipe said the state implementation unit of L-PRES would continue to create awareness, carry out sensitisation campaigns in all the nooks and crannies of the state, and ensure that farmers vaccinate their animals to prevent diseases.

Earlier, the animal health technical assistant, Livestock Productivity and Resilience Support (L-PRES) project at FMAFS, Abubakar Sodiq, said that the allocation of 100,000 doses of the anthrax vaccine to the state was to prevent the disease.