Veterinarians vaccinate a cow against lumpy skin disease in Stung Treng province’s Siem Pang district on Tuesday. AGRICULTURE DEPARTMENT
Nearly 20,000 cattle in Stung Treng province have now been vaccinated against various diseases, including lumpy skin disease (LSD).
Officials from the provincial Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said they will continue to provide vaccinations to cattle when vaccines supplies are available. They called on the public to patiently cooperate with officials.
According to the department, a total of 18,611 cattle have been vaccinated by their veterinarians as of September 15. Among them, 12,571 were vaccinated against Haemorrhagic Septicaemia disease, 4,590 against foot-and-mouth disease, and 1,000 against LSD.
Department director Tum Nyro told The Post on September 16 that the provision of these vaccines had been going on for almost a month, with the work now complete in some areas such as Stung Treng town and Sesan and Siem Pang districts, and is still ongoing in most parts of the province.
“Obviously, we’ll provide vaccinations to their cattle to whatever extent we’re able to. In the future, we’d like to have the capacity to administer 20,000 or 30,000 of these jabs to cattle without any problems,” he said.
Nyro said some problems faced by the veterinarians who are providing these vaccines was the fact that people living in the northeastern region of the province were not raising their cattle properly due to a lack of knowledge about the animals or use of modern methods for raising them.
“We are still calling on people to raise their cattle in barns. Otherwise, they will risk having their animals get sick or die needlessly. And villagers also face a risk that their cattle will be stolen. Barn or no barn, we urge people to bring their cattle to be vaccinated with the veterinary agents in each village,” he said.
The department estimates that there are a total of 50,000 to 60,000 cattle in Stung Treng province and there have been about one thousand cases of LSD detected in cattle there so far, though no death has been reported.
According to Nyro, the outbreaks of other cattle diseases such as Haemorrhagic Septicaemia and foot-and-mouth no longer occurred on a significant level due to the widespread annual use of vaccines against them.
