Thursday, 26 July 2012 12:53 Yadana OoThe World Organization for Animal Health OIE (WOAH) will provide Burma 500,000 doses of vaccines for foot and mouth disease for cattle, an official at the Myanmar Livestock Federation (MLF) said.
Starting in early July, China stopped importing beef products from Burma after detecting foot and mouth disease (FMD) in exported beef.
WOAH is in discussions with Burmese organizations on how to provide the vaccines.
Win Sein, the MLF vice chairman, said, foot and mouth disease occurs in most of the countries in the world.
The last reported outbreak in Burma was in Rakhine State in 2011 involving about 350 cattle.
The Burmese government cannot manufacture a vaccine for the disease because of a lack of funds, Win Sein said.
He said a program of inoculation would begin when the vaccines are received. Control measures sometimes include quarantine, destruction of infected livestock and export bans.
Foot and mouth disease usually occurs in Irrawaddy Region, Pegu [Bago] Region and Mandalay Region in Burma in May, July and late October, he said.
FMD is an infectious and sometimes fatal viral disease that affects cloven-hoofed animals, including domestic and wild bovids. The virus causes a high fever for two or three days, followed by blisters inside the mouth and on the feet that may rupture and cause lameness.
Foot-and-mouth disease is a severe plague for animal farming, since it is highly infectious and can be spread by infected animals through the air, through contact with contaminated farming equipment, vehicles, clothing or feed, and by domestic and wild predators. Its containment demands considerable efforts in vaccination, strict monitoring, trade restrictions and quarantines, and occasionally the elimination of millions of animals.
Like other viruses, the FMD virus continually evolves and mutates. This means FMD vaccines must be highly specific to the strain involved. Vaccination only provides temporary immunity that lasts from months to years.
The disease can spread rapidly among animals, and it is a much greater threat to the agriculture industry than to human health. Farmers around the world can lose huge amounts of money during a foot-and-mouth outbreak, when large amounts of animal capital is destroyed, and revenues from milk and meat production go down.
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