The Need For Hundreds Of Thousands Of Doses Of PMK Vaccine Received Only 4,800, DIY Provincial Government: Still A Long Way!

JAKARTA - The Yogyakarta Provincial Government requires hundreds of thousands of doses of vaccine for livestock at risk of foot and mouth disease (FMD) there. They only received 4,800 doses from the central government.

"In terms of proportion (4,800 doses from the center) it is still a long way off. Moreover, if later there is some kind of directive that all split-toed animals must be vaccinated, the need is great," said the Head of Agriculture and Food Security (DPKP) DIY Sugeng Purwanto when contacted in Yogyakarta, Tuesday. June 28, quoted from Antara.

According to Sugeng, the dose of vaccine that has been received is still far from the total population of livestock at risk of FMD in DIY, which reaches no less than 315,000 cows and 400 thousand goats/sheep.

According to Sugeng, although still limited, as many as 4,800 doses of PMK vaccine from the central government are currently prioritized for dairy cows in Cangkringan and Pekem Districts, Sleman Regency, reaching 3,100 doses.

The rest is distributed to cattle in general, including beef cattle in Kulon Progo, Bantul, and Gunung Kidul regencies with the vaccine injection range from 25 June to 5 July 2022.

The central government, said Sugeng, had promised to re-allocate the PMK vaccine for DIY in August 2022.

"Indeed, ideally, all of them should be vaccinated, but it will be in the long term because the existing vaccine is difficult to find. It is imported from France, so it is indeed difficult," said Sugeng.

Sugeng said as many as thousands of doses of PMK vaccine that have been received from the central government are currently prioritized for dairy cows because they are aware of the daily income of farmers, especially for long-term milk production.

"This dairy cow for milk is expected to live in the long term, unlike beef cattle, which have been slaughtered or sold for three or four years," he said.

Apart from the fact that there are many groups of dairy farmers, according to him, Sleman Regency gets the largest allocation of vaccines because cases of FMD transmission are higher than other districts in DIY.

From a total of 5,000 cattle and sheep that were positively exposed to FMD in Yogyakarta, according to him, livestock in Sleman had the most dominant percentage.

"In Sleman, the number (of PMK cases) is quite large, even though it was originally from Kulon Progo Regency but is growing rapidly in Sleman," he said.

Sugeng hopes that with the distribution of the vaccine, people in DIY will no longer worry about the spread of FMD, especially since the number of positive cases of FMD is still far from the total livestock population in DIY.

"We hope that the community will remain calm because after all the government has taken preventive measures, concrete actions to secure livestock in the community," he said.