Optimistic That The FMD Outbreak Will Disappear By The End Of 2022, Task Force: Vaccinations Are Now More Than 1.2 Million Doses

Cattle in Riau infected with FMD. (Inter-Department of PKH Riau)

JAKARTA - The Nail and Mouth Disease Handling Task Force (PMK) believes the FMD outbreak will reach zero new cases throughout Indonesia starting at the end of 2022.

"We work with a time frame of six months since the Task Force was formed. We hope that by the end of this year, we can control the situation by having the number of reported cases decrease from time to time, related to positive cases," said Government Spokesperson for Handling PMK Wiku Adisasmito in Jakarta, Wednesday.

The PMK Task Force reports that currently six provinces in Indonesia have been declared free from finding new cases of PMK.

Wiku said efforts to reduce the rate of FMD cases in livestock were carried out through tight control and routine coordination from the center to the regions in suppressing the spread of the outbreak.

The implementation of this supervision is in accordance with the multilevel policies contained in the five PMK Task Force strategies, namely biosecurity, treatment and recovery of livestock, livestock testing, conditional slaughter, and vaccination.

"We always coordinate with local governments, both infected and infection-free areas. To ensure that they protect their territory (for the green zone) and for the red zone, it is hoped that they will continue to report the latest conditions," he said, according to Antara.

The government has tightened the application of biosecurity to the level of foreign tourists, both those who come to Indonesia and those who will return to their country.

"One example is placing foot mats and disinfectant spray at the arrival and departure of Ngurah Rai and Sentani International Airports, and other areas that are included in the PMK-free zone," he said.

In addition, the government through the Ministry of Agriculture (Kemenpar) in collaboration with the PMK Task Force is increasingly intensifying the distribution of vaccines and their injections with priority for livestock in the green zone.

"Vaccination has been carried out for more than 1.2 million (dose) vaccines. In Indonesia, the number of new cases of PMK is sloping. And this shows that vaccines are able to suppress FMD," he said.

For the initial stage, the government has distributed 3 million doses of FMD vaccine which is divided into 2 phases, namely 800,000 doses that have been distributed and injected into livestock, and 2.2 million doses are being distributed and are starting to be injected into livestock.

"Studies prove that the PMK vaccine can reduce the financial impact on farmers in Southeast Asia," he added.

Based on data from the PMK Task Force as of August 9, 2022, from 37 provinces, 24 provinces were exposed to the FMD outbreak. Of that number, six provinces did not find new cases or zero, including Bali, Riau Islands, DKI Jakarta and South Kalimantan.