{UAH} Uganda farmers use ARVs to fatten pigs, chicken
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11:03 PM |
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Uganda farmers use ARVs to fatten pigs, chicken
ARVs! Anti-Retro Viral drugs. You think you know what they are used for. That they are for treating people who have HIV, the virus that causes the Aids, right? Not necessarily. In Uganda, the increasingly popular use of ARVs is for enhancing pigs' and now chicken food!
Uganda poultry and pig farmers have become the biggest customers for ARVs, finally creating a commercial demand for them. It is that crazy.
These horrible people have shamelessly stated on television cameras that when pigs are fed on ARVs, they mature fast and help boost the supply of pork.
And now they have started feeding the ARVs to chicken! The shameless farmers insist that chicken respond to ARVs very well because they just eat them like any other grain they are given. Nobody seems to care that these ARVs cost a fortune and are paid for by American tax-payers.
Uganda receives $500million (Sh50 billion) every year from the United States government for its health sector alone. Most of this money goes to buying ARVs, so that even the poorest peasant in the village who spends a year without earning one Uganda shilling, can access the expensive ARV treatment.
But now the crisis we have, according to the media, is that ARVs are no longer steadily available in public hospitals. Reason? They are being sold by the watchmen to farmers. Of course, a watchman at the gate does not have the keys to the hospital pharmacy.
He must be getting the ARVs from someone higher up. But the farmers don't need to know that. All they know is that you talk to the hospital gate man quietly, pay cash and you get your ARVs to make your pigs and chicken grow fast.
Journalists have taken the trouble of talking to vets specialising in pigs and chicken. According to these, the ARVs tend to cause a higher appetite in the animals, so they eat their food better and grow fat. But their actual growth is not necessarily accelerated, though they put on fat more quickly because of the amino acids.
So far, the authorities have not given any indication if people who are consuming the ARVs via pork and chicken meat, which is virtually everybody in town, are in any way affected. We only hope that this folly is not creating resistance to ARVs, should someone need the treatment one day.
The things we do! Only recently Ugandans discovered that they are consuming formalin in beef because butchers shower the meat with the dangerous chemicals to keep off flies.
A few butchers were arrested around Christmas time, but now it is back to business as usual. Now it is ARVs in pork and chicken. What are they going to feed us next? Donkeys?
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