Management of livestock diseases to be improved

Veterinary staff destroy pigs infected with blue ear disease in Trieu Phong District, Quang Tri Province. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development was asked to improve management of bird flu and blue-ear diseases outbreaks. — VNA/VNS Photo Ho Cau

HA NOI (VNS)— Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan asked the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) to monitor the bird flu epidemic and keep the public updated in a recent official document.

Specifically, Nhan asked relevant ministries – including the ministries of health, public security and industry and trade – to join hands in checking poultry products' safety and cracking down on illegal poultry transporting and trading.

The Ministry of Information and Communications was instructed to spread information that would deter people from illegally importing poultry and submit results of this assignment to the Prime Minister before the end of this month.

Nhan also asked provincial and urban people's committees to co-operate with the Ha Noi People's Committee to locate and punish violators.

Director of MARD's Animal Health Department Pham Van Dong on Tuesday said that blue-ear disease, which affects pigs, and foot-and-mouth disease, which strikes other livestock, had spread quickly in the central provinces including Nghe An, Quang Nam and Quang Tri.

In Nghe An Province, nearly 400 pigs died reportedly.

Dong blamed the spread of the disease on illegal livestock transporting and trading.

Local authorities and animal health workers also neglected to take adequate preventive measures, he said.

Meanwhile, deputy director of MARD's Livestock Breeding Department Nguyen Van Trong said that poultry prices this month had increased by 20 per cent, leading small traders to use various tricks to illegally transport poultry and eggs to Ha Noi.

But this practice – while tempting for individual traders – also raises the risk of an epidemic.

The epidemic struck more than 600 pigs in five districts in central Thanh Hoa Province. Nearly 200 of them were culled.

The Thanh Hoa Department of Agriculture and Rural Development asked commune authorities to isolate sick livestock, vaccinate healthy animals and set up quarantine stations.

In the central highlands province of Lam Dong, foot-and-mouth disease appeared in Don Duong District – the only district breeding dairy cows in the province.

Since the beginning of this month, more than 120 animals succumbed to the disease. — VNS