Pictures circulating on social media show fishermen whose faces, mouths, and limbs are covered with warts and lesions.
More than 50 fishermen in the West African country have been hospitalized with an unknown skin disease, a government spokesman said on Friday, a day after authorities launched an investigation into the incident.
Pictures circulating on social media show fishermen whose faces, mouths, and limbs are covered with pimples and lesions.
“To counter this strange phenomenon, the government has formed an interministerial crisis management committee composed of representatives from the ministries of Environment, Fisheries, Health, Transport, Mines and Shipping in the province,” spokesman Othmane Jawal Diallo said in a press statement.
He stated that a committee of scientists had taken seawater samples from suspected areas, and they were being analyzed in laboratories in Guinea and abroad.
“Pending the results, the government urges fishermen to exercise caution and avoid fishing areas with ocher ground water levels,” he added.
According to the press release, analyzes of fish products supplied by the fishermen involved indicate that they can be safely consumed.
In November 2020, hundreds of Senegalese fishermen contracted an unknown skin disease with similar symptoms.
The Senegalese Ministry of Health later ruled out the risk of infection and stated that all cases progressed positively and without complications, without knowing the cause of this disease.
