Director of vet services suspended over cattle disease (Update 2)

The public service commission has suspended director of Veterinary Services Christodoulos Pipis for three months.

The reason is the instances of Brucellosis found in cattle in a Larnaca livestock farm, which resulted in the need to cull approximately 1,200 animals.

Brucellosis, a bacterial disease which mainly infects sheep, cattle and goats, is endemic to many parts of Africa, Asia, the Middle East and the Mediterranean. People can get the disease when they come into contact with infected animals or contaminated animal products.

The agriculture ministry released a statement on Wednesday afternoon revealing that several Veterinary Service officials, including Pipis, “were found guilty of negligence while performing their duties”.

It said that, after finding cases of brucellosis in cattle, an internal investigation, aimed at finding possible irregularities within the Veterinary Service, was ordered on October 4.

“On the basis of the results yielded by the investigation and in order to ensure it smooth conduct, it was decided to suspend the director of the Veterinary Service for three months,” the agriculture ministry said.

Following a 13-year-long successful eradication campaign, the disease was thought to have been eliminated from the island, and in 2013, Cyprus was granted the official status of a country free from the disease by the EU. This is no longer the case and comes at the worst possible time considering the energy crisis and the cascade of rising costs impacting farmers.

The Animal Party on Wednesday welcomed the director’s suspension in a public press release. In its announcement the party issued a reminder that it had already in May warned the ministry of agriculture and the veterinary services about the poor handling of the Brucellosis incidents and the “unacceptable attitude of the director”.

When the incidents were identified earlier this year, questions were raised over the timing of the laboratory tests carried out since insiders believe the sample was taken in January 2022 and the testing was not performed until two months later.

The usual practice is for the specific test to be carried out within 10 days from the day the sample is taken.

The Animal Party added that Pipis should have been chastised sooner for mishandling multiple other episodes, among them, the unjust death of the hybrid cat ‘Berton’; the pending case of the scandal of the Kofinou slaughterhouse and Cypra; and the issue of administrative fines.