Haitians who arrived in the island last week, scan a copy of The Gleaner on Friday as they await their fate at the Portland Rehabilitation Centre where they are being housed. -RUDOLPH BROWN photo
Damion Mitchell,
Staff Reporter
THE JAMAICA Pig Farmers Association is concerned that the dreaded Classic Swine Fever (CSF), which has devastated the pork industry in Haiti, could reach Jamaica with the arrival of Haitian refugees in the island.
"With the inflow of these refugees, we are at risk," Delroy Manya, president of the Jamaica Pig Farmers' Association told The Sunday Gleaner yesterday.
About 6:00 a.m. on February 14, ten Haitians aboard a 13-foot engine boat arrived in Manchioneal, Portland, while last Thursday, another 20 travelling in a 15-foot boat dubbed 'One Love' ran aground at Hector's River in the parish.
The Haitians had fled their country because of the bloody unrest there.
Mr. Manya, who is also a veterinary technician, said the Pig Farmers' Association would be formally relating its concern to the Ministry of Agriculture and that it would be recommending that proper measures be employed in processing the Haitian refugees to minimise the risk of transmitting CSF.
"Our major concern is that nobody knows if these refugees are coming off any farms, or if they have any pork products with them," he said.
But Agriculture Minister Roger Clarke, said that his Ministry's was guarding against the transference of the disease.
He said that while it is a "complex thing" to test whether items belonging to the Haitians are contaminated with CSF, "the Ministry (of Agriculture) would be working in tandem with the Ministry of Health to make sure that they (the refugees) are properly screened."
He also said that the Haitians who are now being sheltered at Portland Rehabilitation Centre would not be allowed to roam the area.
In the meantime, the Pig Farmers' Association has had one regional seminar in Santa Cruz, St. Elizabeth, to inform farmers about the disease while three other similar seminars are being planned, said Mr. Manya.
CSF the highly infectious viral disease affects domestic pigs and wild boars. It is transmitted through direct contact between a healthy and an infected pig or through contact with body secretions and excretions from an infected pig. It can also be transferred through contact with contaminated feed, clothing or pork scraps.
SIGNS
The mild form of CSF rarely results in noticeable signs but may cause small litter sizes, stillbirths and other reproductive faults, while the more chronic form of the disease will result in death. The disease dates back several decades, according to a United States Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Web site.
In August 1996, there was a severe outbreak of the disease in Hispaniola, which has since spread throughout the Dominican Republic and Haiti and which has threatened the pig industries in other countries in close proximity to Hispaniola such as the Bahamas and Jamaica. The Jamaica Pig Farmers association registered some 250 farmers but there are approximately 6,000 pig farmers islandwide, according to Mr. Manya
