"This vaccination is expected to prevent the spread of the disease, especially in dairy farming centers and breeding centers," the ministry's director general of livestock and animal health, Nasrullah, said in a statement received here the same day.
The national FMD vaccination program was initiated at a dairy farm in Tanjunganom Hamlet, Tanjungsari Village, Taman Subdistrict, Sidoarjo District. The second location was a farm belonging to Pertapaan Jaya Livestock Group, Banjar Anyar Hamlet, Pertapaan Maduretno Cillage, Taman Subdistrict, Sidoarjo District.
Nasrullah said that the national mass vaccination program is one of the permanent measures taken by the government to prevent and control the FMD outbreak.
"We will prioritize this first phase of the vaccination (program) for healthy livestock and those in the red and yellow zones because our current vaccine quantity is still limited. Thus, only selected livestock will be vaccinated," he explained.
He informed that livestock animals that have recovered from FMD already have naturally-formed immunity against the virus; thus, they will not be vaccinated. To prevent the spread of the disease, he advised farmers to implement biosecurity and cage disinfection.
The government will provide 800 thousand FMD vaccine doses for the first phase and 2.2 million doses for the second phase of the vaccination program, Nasrullah informed.
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According to him, the marking and data collection of vaccinated livestock will be carried out with the help of ear tags equipped with QR codes.
"After vaccination, it is important to mark the cattle and collect data in the livestock data collection system. After data collection and vaccination are carried out, the QR code contained in the ear tag can be scanned through an Android-based mobile app," he said.
The vaccination history will be displayed in the form of a vaccine card that contains the identification number, breed/family of the animal, sex, type of vaccine administered, vaccination history, and the location and date of vaccination.
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Translator: Aditya Ramadhan, Raka Adji
Editor: Rahmad Nasution
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