Task Force Reveals 12 Provinces in Indonesia Now Free of FMD Transmission

JAKARTA - The Coordinator of the Expert Team for the Foot and Mouth Diseases (FMD) Task Force, Wiku Adisasmito, revealed that as many as 12 provinces in the country have been declared free of FMD cases as of Tuesday, November 22.

"Of the 25 provinces affected or infected with FMD, now there are 12 provinces or 48 percent that have zero reported cases, meaning that they are no longer reporting (contagion)", said Wiku when met on the sidelines of the FMD national coordination meeting (Rakornas) in Jakarta, Wednesday, November 23.

"Then out of the 309 regencies and cities that were infected, 172 or 55.7 percent of the regencies and cities had zero reported cases", he continued.

However, Wiku said that there were no reports of transmission that did not mean that the FMD disease had disappeared in the province or district and city.

"In the future, we want to ensure that more regencies and cities remain uninfected and those infected should have zero reported cases", he said.

To achieve this, Wiku reminded the implementation of the five main strategies for handling FMD, namely biosecurity or biological resistance, vaccination, testing, treatment, and conditional cutting.

"What we hope is that the first case is under control, then later with the passage of time and a massive program, we hope that Indonesia can be free from FMD again, but it will take time", said Wiku.

"But what is clear now is that there are no animals that are infected again. The virus may be present, but if the vaccination is good, the transmission should be lower", he continued.

Based on data from the FMD Handling Task Force on November 22, 2022, the five provinces with the highest active or unrecovered cases were Central Java with 16,439 cases, followed by East Java with 8,950 cases, West Nusa Tenggara with 7,508 cases, D.I. Yogyakarta 3,979 cases, and South Sulawesi 3,178 cases.