Mongolia continues fight against foot-and-mouth disease

ULAN BATOR, July 6 (Xinhua) -- The government will continue to fight foot-and-mouth disease in eastern Mongolia by vaccinating millions of livestock, officials said Tuesday.

Efforts to fight the disease in eastern Mongolia were continuing and the vaccination of the country's livestock would also continue, Enkhbold Miegombo, deputy premier and chairman of the national emergency commission, said during a commission meeting.

The commission said the government has spent 326 million Tugrig (0.22 million U.S. dollars) on the vaccination of cattle herds. So far, 1,400 infected cattle have been slaughtered and buried in Dornod province.

Meanwhile, the ministry of food, agriculture and light industry has proposed to vaccinate all 7.1 million livestock in Khentii, Sukhbaatar, Umnugobi, and Dornogobi provinces.

Emergency officials were also attempting to monitor the movement of about 10,000 whitetail gazelle herds in eastern Dornod province.

The first symptoms of foot-and-mouth disease, a highly contagious and fatal disease in animals, was detected April 22 in cattle herds in Dornod province.

Since then, a quarantine has been imposed in the province. The disease, however, has broken out five times in the villages of Matad, Bayantumen, Khalkhgol, and Bulgan since May 14.

source: xinhua