African swine fever threatens Far North population

An outbreak of African swine fever has been officially declared in the Logone and Chari department in the region of the Far North of Cameroon.

For now, the damage remains minor, since only four barns were infected and 70 dead animals buried under the usual precautions, we learned from authoritative sources.

According to the Cameroonian authorities, the plague comes from Chad, particularly from NDjamena, the Chadian capital, that borders the town of Kousseri, in the Logone and Chari department, where trade between the two countries is very dynamic.

But in order to quickly identify this disease, which first of its kind had decimated 80% of Cameroon's pig population in 1982, officials from the ministry of Fisheries and Animal Industries, for now, prohibits slaughter of pigs in the whole of Logone and Chari.

Cameroonian authorities fears are justified according to the fact that the Far North region officially claims 25% of the country’s pork production.

From this point of view, pig farming is the main source of income for a large part of the population, which also powers the “rotisserie” employing thousands of young people in the southern part of Cameroon.

In 2010, swine fever had decimated a large quantity of pork in that region, causing heavy losses to farmers.