Fish infested by Epizootic Ulcerative Syndrome disease in Northern Bahr El Ghazal State in December 2021. (Photo/File/Courtesy).

Fishermen in Aweil North in Northern Bahr el Ghazal have caught fish infested with red sore disease in the Kiir Adem river in a suspected Epizootic Ulcerative Syndrome (EUS) outbreak – prompting a call for national government intervention.

This is the second time that the incident following a similar occurrence reported in the Lol River three years ago.

Aweil North Commissioner Kiir Chan Wol has urged residents to report further cases and avoid consuming affected fish until more information is available from relevant authorities.

“The fish have several wounds and we don’t know the reason,” he said in an interview with Eye Radio.

“For your information, as we mentioned previously, the same disease that infects the fish appeared and a sample was sent for examination in Juba. The medical report that was sent added that the period of infection of the fish lasts 21 days and then disappears.”

In December 2021, fishermen at the Lol River reported an unknown disease after they discovered wounds on the bodies of the fish fetched.

This prompted the authorities to ban fishing in the river and its tributaries.

Weeks later, the livestock and fisheries ministry and the UN Food and Agricultural Organization dispatched a team of experts to investigate the cause of the fish infection.

The subsequent diagnostic investigations named the strange disease as Epizootic Ulcerative Syndrome or EUS, a fungal infection with a life cycle of less than 20 days.

In January 2022, the Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries declared the outbreak over and said citizens of the state could then resume eating fish from the Lol River.

When contacted by Eye Radio on Monday, the Minister of Livestock and Fisheries Onyeti Adigo said his office is yet to be officially informed about the situation.

Adigo said that if they receive the information, they will conduct an investigation.

“They have not been informed about this matter yet and he said that if they receive the information, they will conduct an investigation.”

The 2022 investigation on the red sore disease indicated that the fish infection was first reported at Gangura River of Western Equatoria State in March 2020. The Gangura River, which connects to Lol River has its tributaries from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The health experts suspected that the two outbreaks in the country must have originated from the tropical rainforest of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

EUS disease was also reported in Japan in 1971 and in Botswana, Namibia, and Zambia in 2007.