(Ganta, Nimba County, November 14, 2021):- With funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), a new Animal Quarantine Center near the Liberia-Guinea’s border point in Ganta, Nimba has been inaugurated and turned over to the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA).

MOA’s Quarantine Officers will use the center to conduct thorough health checks on cattle, sheep and goat imported from neighboring countries to prevent animal-to-human diseases transmission.

The center is fully equipped with on-site laboratory to detect disease(s) in and among newly arrived eatable animals.

Liberia's urban areas are heavily dependent on sheep and cattle imports from its northern regional neighbor – Guinea in particular most times; and sometimes, from faraway Republic of Mali.

However, those animal species are found in southeastern Liberia, but access to markets – especially to urban areas where consumptions are high – are hindered by bad road networks.

Acting Agriculture Minister Robert Fagans – who led a team of MOA’s senior official for the dedicatory ceremony – lauded the partnership among MOA, USAID and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization that led to the construction of the center.

World Health Organization (WHO) says, “The interface between humans, animals, and the environments we share can also be a source of diseases impacting public health. Such diseases, transmissible from animals to humans through direct contact or though food, water, and the environment, are commonly referred to as “zoonoses.”

“Zoonoses comprise a large percentage of all newly identified infectious diseases as well as existing infectious diseases”, WHO says.