Head Of BNPB: President Orders Lockdown Of FMD Infected Areas For Livestock

JAKARTA - Head of the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB), Lt. Gen. Suharyanto, explained several directives from President Joko Widodo to prevent Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) from spreading in Indonesia.

One of them is ordering a regional lock-up or lockdown for areas with FMD red zone status for provinces whose sub-districts have been infected by more than 50 percent.

"There should be no movement of animals from one point to another. So everything is locked down", said Suharyanto at a coordination meeting on the handling of the nail and mouth disease outbreak, quoted by ANTARA, Friday, June 24.

The target of the policy is to stop adding red areas related to FMD.

In addition, public communication ahead of Eid al-Adha also needs to be carried out, such as animal health education and clear explanations to the public.

The public is expected to remain calm and alert, and fully aware of the FMD. So there may be differences, especially regarding the mobilization of livestock or the movement of livestock from one point to another, especially in areas that are red zones for FMD.

The second directive is the establishment of a Regional Task Force to record and ensure that veterinarians and veterinary authorities are in their respective regions, and are immediately operationalized in each respective region at the district/city level as well as at the provincial level, and especially in the red zone.

The third is to record the need for vaccines and vaccinator personnel, considering that the Ministry of Agriculture at the end of this week will carry out the FMD vaccination.

The data is then integrated using the current COVID-19 data reporting system.

"Furthermore, if there is a need for sacrificial animals cannot be met, there is no need to mobilize livestock between regions. This is indeed not easy to explain to the public, but this is the decision of the state leader. So please each region, each region, follow this policy", said Suharyanto.

Next is to establish an FMD post to monitor livestock traffic, by activating the Micro PPKM post at the village, sub-district level which has been used to control COVID-19 cases.

"Use these posts to monitor and supervise and carry out the handling stages related to FMD / Regarding vaccination data, testing, tracing, this will be carried out again so the pattern is the same as COVID-19", he said.

He asked each region to reactivate cross-regional command posts, weighbridges, sea and airports, and village posts to monitor livestock traffic.

In addition, Suharyanto asked provinces, regencies/cities that have not been affected by the FMD outbreak to guard the entrances to their territory, so that animal traffic does not enter, especially if the health of the livestock is not guaranteed.