6-10 July 2015. In Mid-April, Liberia experienced massive mortalities in sheep and goats suspected to be as a result of PPR outbreak. The national veterinary authorities formally requested emergency technical assistance of the African Union Interafrican Bureau for Animal resources (AU-IBAR) to elucidate these suspected mortalities recorded in small ruminants. In response, AU-IBAR and African Union Pan African Veterinary vaccine Centre (AU-PANVAC) jointly conducted a mission 6-10 July 2015 to determine the actual cause of these mortalities and proffer possible solutions to the problem.
A team of two technical officers from AU-IBAR and AU-PANVAC were therefore sent to the country with the objectives of providing assistance to the national veterinary authorities in:
- Determining the cause of the mortalities;
- Assessment of epidemiological situation of the suspected mortalities observed in sheep and goats in the country and investigate to what extent the disease has spread from mid-April up to the time of the visit;
- Assessment of the activities and measures already taken to contain the outbreaks, control the disease and prevent its spread from infected to non-infected areas and to help the Liberian authorities to perform the control measures;
- Recommend appropriate actions to be taken for the control and containment of the outbreak.
After 3 days of intensive field investigation which included interviews, discussion and field visits to the infected regions, necropsy and collection of fresh samples for laboratory diagnosis including organs for serology, molecular biology tests and virus isolation, it was found out that the disease was introduced into Liberia from Guinea Conakry by possible illegal trade by livestock traders. Liberia imports mainly live animals for human consumption from Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire and Mali. These animals include small ruminants (sheep and goats) and cattle. The porosity of the borders and the resultant huge volume of informal trade and movement of animals across the borders creates a conducive atmosphere for animal diseases to move rapidly toward the cross border market in Guinea Conakry to Liberia through Nimba and Lofa counties (colored in red in the map). There is a close relationship (same communities) between the populations living across the 3 countries Guinea Conakry, Cote d’Ivoire and Liberia. It is also a well known fact that PPR is endemic in Guinea Conakry, Cote d’Ivoire and Sierra Leone.