More vaccines needed to combat animal disease

Kidokoro Takuo and M.Enkhbold

As of today contagious, animal foot-and-mouth disease was recorded in 18 soums of 4 aimags and 3.7 million animals in 42 soums of Dornod, Sukhbaatar, Khentii and Dornogobi aimags have been vaccinated.

It is required that a total of Tgs2.2 billion for purchasing 4.2 million doses of vaccine to vaccinate 7.4 million animals in Dornogobi, Gobisumber, Tov, Dundgobi, Khentii aimags and Ulaanbaatar city, said M. Enkhbold, Deputy Prime Minister and head of the State Emergency Commission. On November 9, he met with N. Oyundelger, assistant FAO Representative in Ulaanbaatar to discuss the matter and requested help from the organization. FAO Mongolia Office sent information to its head organization about how the Mongolian government and relevant organizations combat foot-and-mouth disease. The Food, Agriculture and Light Industry Minister also sent a letter. An answer to the letter will come back soon, said assistant FAO Representative.

The Government made 6 resolutions to combat the contagious animal foot-and-mouth disease that was first recorded in April, 2010 in Sukhbaatar and Dornod aimags. Tgs5.8 billion has been spent of which Tgs2,070,000,000 was spent on purchasing vaccines, Tgs2,350,000,000 on reimbursement to herders whose animals were destroyed and Tgs800 million was spent on activity expenses.
On November 10, Mr. Enkhbold met with Japan’s Ambassador Kidokoro Takuo. During the meeting, Mr. Enkhbold introduced the current situation for combating the disease and expressed interest to get assistance from Japan. In turn, Japan’s Ambassador said that results of the survey conducted on how the disease has been combated would be sent to Tokyo and an official and definite answer will be given in the near future.
source: The Mongol Messenger newspaper