NTB Regional Police Formed, PMK Handling Task Force Performs Insulation At Ports And Regional Borders

Inspection of cattle on passing trucks. (Between)

NTB - The Regional Police of West Nusa Tenggara (Polda NTB) formed a Task Force for Handling Mouth and Nail Diseases as an effort to help the government deal with FMD in livestock.

"For this purpose, a police operation was made with the code for Operation Safe Nusa II 2022 in the context of Handling PMK in NTB," said Head of Public Relations of the NTB Police, Senior Commissioner of Police Artanto in Mataram, NTB, Monday, July 4.

In the police operation, which will take place from July 4 to August 2, 2022, he continued, police activities are no different from handling COVID-19.

"Just like handling COVID-19, we start with data collection. Who are healthy, how many have received the vaccine, how many have been exposed, how many have not received the vaccine, first data collection," he said.

In collecting the data, he said, the police coordinated with government agencies, both at the city and district levels.

"From the data collection, then we move. We also prepare a medical team from the police to help the government vaccinate livestock," he said.

In addition to vaccination, continued Artanto, efforts to prevent transmission of FMD cases in livestock are also carried out by establishing isolation posts.

"We set it up at ports and borders between cities and regencies, both on the islands of Lombok and Sumbawa. It will be filled in by an integrated team, so if there are findings, they can be handled immediately," he said.

In the task of blocking, officers will inspect every livestock transporting vehicle. Officers must ensure the health condition of the livestock.

"Essentially, cattle that pass must have a health statement. It was issued by the quarantine and livestock service. It has to be there," he said.

Other prevention efforts are also carried out with active sambang patrols. Officers, he explained, intensively visited livestock farmer groups and animal markets.

According to government data as of July 3, 2022, the recovery rate of livestock on Lombok Island reached 28,179 cattle out of a total of 55,861 cases. Of the number of cases, cattle infected with FMD are now 27,434 tails, 176 tails are conditionally slaughtered and 72 tails die.

This figure is out of the total population of animals that are susceptible to FMD such as cattle, buffalo, goats, sheep, and pigs, which are recorded at 950,551 heads.