26 Mar 2017

Stakeholders have called on farmers and the community to come up with effective strategies to eradicate beef measles as it impacted negatively on Maun Botswana Meat Commission (BMC) coffers.
It was reported during a seminar organised by UNDP that many cattle slaughtered at the abattoir had measles resulting in the abattoir incurring costs because of condemned beef which had to be treated.
The seminar attracted stakeholders to discuss beef measles prevalence and mitigations in the Ngamiland district.
Since 2014, over 4 million carcasses were condemned while 187 200 were detained, costing the abattoir over P50 000 for treatment.
Dr Odirileng Thololwane from the Department of Veterinary Services indicated that the disease continued to threaten the beef industry.
He explained that when a beast was detected with measles, BMC had to detain it for 14 days and spend P500 on each beast while on the other hand, farmers were paid P150 an animal, if more than 10 of their cattle were found to have measles.
He blamed poor sanitation for the prevalence of the disease in the district adding that the community was still behind in adopting good hygiene practices.
The disease known as mabele in Setswana, he said affected humans and cattle and was caused by a parasite known as Taenia Sacinata, a tapeworm that breed in the intestines of infected humans.
Dr Thololwane said the parasite was transmitted to cattle after grazing on pastures contaminated with human stools. Furthermore, he explained that both cattle and humans infected with the disease showed little or no symptoms of ill health.
He said infected people sometimes exhibited abdominal pains, nausea and itchiness around the anus.
With good sanitation, Dr Thololwane explained that the disease was preventable and emphasised the need to educate herdsmen and the farming community on good hygiene practices.
He also said cattle should be prevented from drinking sewage water.
Maun plant manager, Mr Oabona Ramotshwara admitted that measles was draining the plant’s coffers.
He said detaining carcass reduced production, took space and used more electricity adding that going forward they might charge producers for incurred costs. ENDS