CERCOPAN

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Nov 23 2008 | By: cercopan

By Uche Anyaorah, CERCOPAN’s Vetrinarian

The quarantine is one of the most important sections of the rehabilitation facility. It is the section where newcomers to any health facility, especially if they are suspected to have been exposed to a communicable disease, are kept for a period of time depending on the time required to ascertain their health status, and also depending on government regulation. While these individuals are in the quarantine tests are carried out to be absolutely sure that they are free of communicable diseases, which may pose a threat to others. The quarantine is instituted in places where there has been an outbreak of disease or where there has been an epidemic of unknown cause. The quarantine period can range from three months to one year or more.

The monkeys that are donated to CERCOPAN come from different homes and from different forests. A typical scenario is when a hunter shoots the mother and takes the baby from a remote forest. He then sells the baby to a man who lives in the city. The man brings the baby to his son as a present. They live with the monkey for a few months or even years before hearing about CERCOPAN and eventually donates the monkey to us, realizing monkeys should not be kept as pets. So this means the monkey has gone through many stages where it might have been exposed to a disease - from the forest to the hunters home then to the home of its buyer and then to us. This makes it necessary then that a good regimented quarantine procedure should be applied to make sure the monkey does not introduce infections to the healthy animal population or even to the humans who take care of them.

KEEPERS ABAKUM AND AUSTIN WORKING HARD ON THE FIRST ENCLOSURE

In order to achieve this a good quarantine facility is invaluable. Our quarantine building has not been in a very good state for a while now due to lack of funding. We have always tried to make it better but there is so little we can do when only limited funds are available. For a long time now there has been an urgent need to make our quarantine safer for all concerned. The rooves leak and the babies in there have to climb to a corner to avoid being wet in heavy rains. I have seen Joy and Melody –the two hug-hug babies in the quarantine do this often.

KEEPER MATTHEW ENSURING THE PRECISION OF THE PROJECT

Luckily all that has changed now as we are in the process of rebuilding the whole quarantine. This was made possible by the generous donation made by the DISNEY FOUNDATION. Due to their benevolence we will be able to continue our work in a safer environment for the monkeys and also the humans. All our staff members are excited about the new quarantine. Also exciting is the design and construction being handled in-house. The primate caregivers and I have come up with a design and we are in the process of completing the first big enclosure to hold a family of four mona monkeys. After this, we will bring the old structures down and build a brand new one, which will be partitioned into five additional sections. In general, better safety procedures will be instituted to make sure that only authorised persons (and animals!) enter the quarantine to ensure that that everyone is well protected.

FIRST ENCLOSURE’S FRAMEWORK JUST ABOUT COMPLETE