By
Laudia Sawer
Tema, Feb. 18, GNA –
The Veterinary Regulatory Unit at the Tema Port has been excluded from the
joint inspection management system set up to prevent the importation of
coronavirus infected products into Ghana.
Dr Stephen Bonnah,
Head of the Veterinary Regulatory Unit, said it was urgent for his outfit to be
included in the joint inspection management system to ensure an effective
monitoring of animal and animal products, which had a high risk of serving as
carriers of diseases into the country.
Dr Bonnah indicated
that his outfit had for some time been eliminated from inspection activities at the country’s
port, hence, reducing the desired levels of influence and control the Unit had
on animal and animal products making it through the ports into the country.
He said, “At the
moment, at the Tema Port, veterinary is not in charge of products of animal
origin, ” adding that the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) has been put in charge
of animal and animal products which was hitherto his outfit’s responsibility at
the port.
He noted that the
Unit had the necessary facility at its disposal to conduct all procedures
involved in the screening and examination of animal and animal products so that
such diseases transmitted through animals were detected and destroyed.
He added that his
outfit’s laboratory was one of the most sophisticated facilities around saying
“we even handled referrals from other countries in .West Africa.”
Dr Bonnah said, the
Veterinary Regulatory Unit currently issued import permits to importers of
animal and animal products to protect the consumer and prevent the transmission
of trans-border animal diseases.
“Before the import
permit is issued, we do a lot of risk-assessment. We do not easily give out the
import permit. We have to know the disease situation of the place you are
getting your animal products from. And we can equally block these permits when
the alarm is raised,” he added.
He however indicated
that his outfit needed to engage in physical examination of items to be able to
fully fulfil its mandate.
“The OIE, the World
Organisation for Animal Health, Section 5 of the law, declares the authenticity
of veterinary taking over meat inspection and not only live animals,” he said.
He revealed that dog
feed was commonly imported from China,
but he did not even know the statistics of those imports, because those imports
did not go through his office.
GNA