Scavenging Pigs, Unwholesome For Human Consumption – Director

Members of the public have been warned to refrain from patronising inappropriately bred livestock products, especially pork from pigs as they constitute a wide range of health hazards.

A director in the livestock and veterinary services dept in the Rivers State Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources, Dr. Allswell Emejuru, who gave the charge in his office in an exclusive interview said pigs were the main culprit and should be kept in a clean and hygienic environment.

He said pigs are well known scavengers and should be housed in well built pig pens with concrete walls and enough water to enable them have a clean skin and overall good health.

According to him, in such a situation, “the pig on their own know where to defecate, they will drink water at designated points and wallow in water when they feel hot”, he said.

Dr. Emejuru who is also the Head of the Department said the proper thing to do was to keep the pigs in pens partitioned into different groups which include the weaners, the pregnant, nursery and littering among others.

He frowned at situations were people allow their animals, especially pigs to roam about in the streets scavenging which leads to lack of control of their feeding habits which puts a big question mark on their health condition and unwholesome for human consumption.

He explained that in such a case the animals pick up many diseases apart from the ones they are known to be carriers like round worm, hook worm and tape worm among other harmful diseases.

He further warned against patronising pork meat that were not properly handled because the diseases so picked up by these animals are a good source of transmission to human beings.

On efforts to check the menace of these scavenging animals which roam about without care, Dr. Emejuru explained that though such animals constitute environmental hazards, it was not the duty of the Agriculture Ministry to check the trend.

He, therefore, advised government environmental agencies saddled with responsibilities of checking environmental pollution in the society to take appropriate action.

“There are government agencies that are involved in environmental management so they should take appropriate measures to check the pathetic situation”, he advised.