How Diseases Can Be Contracted From Farm Animals In Ghana

Some farmers tend to form a bond with the animals they are rearing.

This is good, because it makes farming enjoyable.

But forming a physical relationship with farm animals is unhealthy.

Today, we will be looking at some diseases that can be contacted from farm animals.

A farmer’s safety comes first before any other thing.

Though the immune system of a human is higher than that of animals, there are some diseases that can be transmitted from animals to man. This condition is known as “zoonosis.”

 

According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary,

Zoonosis is a disease communicable from animals to humans under natural conditions.

 

These kind of diseases can result due to the presence of fungi, bacteria, parasites and viruses.

Just the way humans get sick, farm animals get sick too.

They have to be treated on with caution, because not all of animal diseases actually have a cure.

Your health matters the most, so you have to be very careful. Sometimes, farmers die as a result of contracting animal diseases.

 

Most of human diseases can be traced back to animals.

Like HIV for instance, can be traced back to the twentieth century, when it was still an animal disease before it became a human only disease.

Some of these diseases can be contracted by coming in contact with animals, contamination of food or water supply.

 

Food with such contamination may include meat, seafood, egg and some vegetables.

Farmers who work closely with donkeys and horses can contract glanders. Ebola virus and Zika virus which were not so common years ago, can be contracted from monkeys.

 

Lassa fever, from taking care of rats or rabbits.

While those that rear cattle can contract cutaneous anthrax infection.

Those that work in tanneries and slaughterhouses are not left out of this, they can contract inhalation anthrax infection.

Shepherds are not exempted too, they could contract echinococcosis from sheeps, which is spread through water or flood containing faeces or wools of the sheeps.

 

Bird flu is another common one in the poultry. When bird flu mixes with human flu, it results in spanish flu.

 

Sick pigs can pass diseases to farmers, which includes the bacterium streptococcus suis and skin condition erysipeloid, which can eventually lead to meningitis and deafness in humans.

 

This article was written primarily for farmers, to give more attention to their health while taking care of animals.

It is commonly said in this part of the world that “Health is Wealth“, so you have to take care of yourself First.