Veterinary Public Health

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Category: Verterinary Services

Published on Wednesday, 02 November 2011 14:46

Written by Super User

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Food safety is an important aspect to the lives of all people. The department of veterinary services plays a major role in ensuring safety of foods of animal origin. In particular, it conducts hygiene inspection and licenses all slaughter houses in the country.  It also inspects and licenses meat transport vehicles and carriers and has been encouraging the private sector to invest in new abattoirs. In addition, the department provides quality assurance through enforcing the existing food laws and conducting testing and monitoring of chemical and veterinary drug residues. To ensure sustainability of the public health function, the department has been building capacity through training meat inspectors and meat graders. There are plans to extend this capacity to the inspection and certification of game meat, fish, milk, honey and other non-conventional livestock.

Before 1972, veterinary public health services were restricted to export slaughterhouses comprising of the KMC and Uplands Bacon Factory.  The rest of the country was covered by the Ministry of Health and Local Government. However, the Meat Control Act Cap 356 enacted in 1972 transferred the mandate of meat inspection from Ministry of Health and Local Government to the Veterinary Department. Since then, the department has been taking over the function but the takeover has been slow due to financial and human resources constraint. The department currently covers 54 districts and expects to take over 20 more districts during the Strategic Plan period.

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