Deputy Minister: Government Accelerates Control Of Mouth And Nail Diseases

JAKARTA - Deputy Minister of Agriculture Harvick Hasnul Qolbi said the government was continuing to make efforts to accelerate the handling and control of the Mouth and Nail Disease (FMD) outbreak in Indonesia.

"According to the president's orders, we continue to move quickly, monitoring every day the handling efforts so that this FMD outbreak can be controlled immediately. Besides having an impact on national food stability, it will also affect the economy of smallholder farmers," he said in a written statement quoted by Antara, Saturday, June 11.

According to him, various efforts have been made by the government, starting from the formation of the PMK Virus Handling Task Force, which is planned at the District/Village level to the crisis center in collaboration with the TNI and Polri and other relevant agencies.

In addition, restrictions on livestock traffic were carried out, distribution of aid for drugs, vitamins, and disinfectants to the regions was carried out. While waiting for a vaccine for livestock, farmers are also advised to comply with the recommendations of officers in the field.

The Deputy Minister explained that the existence of vaccination for livestock is also one of the most important things as an effort to anticipate the spread of the FMD outbreak.

"Vaccine for livestock is also one of the important variables in the context of controlling and preventing this FMD outbreak. After the vaccine arrives, we will carry out vaccinations in the near future," he explained.

Previously, the Director General of Livestock and Animal Health (PKH) Nasrullah revealed that the vaccine for handling FMD in livestock will start next week.

The government plans to bring in as many as 3 million doses of emergency vaccines. In addition, the manufacture of domestic vaccines by the Center for Veterinary Farma of the Ministry of Agriculture, training on handling FMD for animal health officers as many as 17,050 people, socialization and public communication, as well as cooperation with the TNI, Polri, Regional Government and related parties.