Chairman of Commission IV of the House of Representatives (DPR) Sudin has called for the strengthening of quarantine for farm animals to prevent the spread of the foot-and-mouth disease (FMD).
In a meeting with the Ministry of Agriculture at the Parliament Building here on Monday, he informed that he found the availability of quarantine officers and disinfectant facilities in the borders between regions to be insufficient.
“For example, when Commission IV made a working visit to East Java, we got information that the control efforts to prevent the spread of FMD were inadequate,” he said.
The commission also found that there were only two quarantine officers and two hand sprayers at the entrance gate.
In addition, he highlighted issues related to the availability and distribution of FMD vaccines for the immunization program, which is the main measure for preventing the transmission of the disease. He requested that the procurement and distribution of vaccines be accelerated.
The Ministry of Agriculture has ordered three million doses of the FMD vaccine from France, and only 800 thousand doses have arrived so far for the first phase of vaccinations. Meanwhile, arrangements are being made to obtain the remaining 2.2 million doses, but funds for the procurement are awaited.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture, the three million doses are emergency vaccines, and in the future, the vaccines will be produced domestically.
However, Sudin said that Indonesia is not yet ready to produce FMD vaccines for the entire population of ruminants in the country. He informed that during a working visit to the Veterinary Farma Center of the Ministry of Agriculture in East Java, he found that it could only produce one million FMD vaccines in a year.
This would not be sufficient to administer three vaccine doses to 18 million heads of cattle in Indonesia.
He also said he expected the allocation of Rp4.4 trillion provided by the government for FMD handling to be followed up with a detailed work plan.
Meanwhile, during the meeting, the chairman of Commission IV also lauded the formation of the FMD task force by the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB).
Source: Antara News