sitemaster Dr Solomon Chollom
Lead Crrespondent, Jos
An abattoir is an institution set up for the sole purpose of organised, supervised and safe slaughter and merchandise of meat. It could be set up by government or private institutions.
The process of slaughter and sell of meat is beyond just butchering and sale of meat of animals. The institution is expected to put in place mechanisms that ensure professional assessment of animals meant for slaughter to ensure they are safe for human consumption. Other mechanisms are to ensure that the value chain from butchering to packaging and to sale of the commodity is done in a way that is safe and professional enough not to constitute public health concerns to the unsuspecting consumers.
To this end, water is expected to be available and safe for use within the facility, waste management policy and infrastructure must be made available to curtail spill over of hazardous waste to adjourning communities and most importantly, professionals must be on ground to inspect animals meant for slaughter to safeguard to consumers
The facility set up puts into perspective the construction of the facility, hygiene of slaughter slabs and that of butchering equipment, hygiene and health of butchers, availability and safety of water for use within the facility and most importantly, the workflow and traffic of people in and out of the facility.
The public is put at great risk when there is compromise in establishing standards. For instance, the presence of meat inspectors and veterinarians in the facility is sacrosanct. When this is not in place, animals suffering from zoonotic diseases like anthrax or rabies will be slaughtered and sold to unsuspecting public. This puts the butchers and other workers at great risk of these infections before ultimately putting the consumers of these commodities at risk of deadly diseases. Not only that, the waste products such as faecal material if not well treated and disposed off, could be washed by running water into water bodies used for drinking, washing or irrigation by adjourning communities hence serving as vehicle for transmission of these diseases. Aside faecal material, water used in washing of meat should not be allowed to drain into water bodies meant for human consumption as they may harbour highly infectious diseases. When this happens, meat consumers or communities bordering the abattoir suffer diseases that are either endogenous (infected animals) or exogenous (introduced in the process of handling). They are referred to animal or meat-borne diseases and present majorly with abdominal pains, nausea, vomiting, fever and dizziness such as salmonellosis, brucellosis or enteritis due to Staphylococcus aureaus, Escherichia coli or Campylobacter jejunum. This is a major threat to community health especially where source of water meant for human consumption and abattoir services is shared or waste disposal infrastructure are lacking
Unfortunately, the health hazard associated with meat in abattoirs is not just with diseases the animals may be suffering from but also from associated handling within the abattoir. For instance, what is the source of water used in washing meat slaughtered in the abattoir and how hygienic is it? What is the availability quotient of the water and how sufficient is it for copious washing meat, cleaning of facility and abattoir workers? When inadequate, water poses a ready challenge as meat will not be properly washed and when not hygienic, it will be a source of disease transmission to the meat meant for consumption. Similarly, when abattoir workers are healthy carriers of respiratory or gastroenteric or urinary tract diseases, they readily contaminate meat meant for human consumption. As such, these workers need to be screened periodically to ensure they are not healthy carriers of diseases so that they do not constitute source of health hazard to meat and put the public health in jeopardy
