Vaccination of livestock and poultry: Slow progress, low rate

(Baonghean) -Nghe An is a province with a large herd of livestock and poultry, however the annual vaccination rate is low and progress is slow.

As a mountainous district, vaccination for livestock and poultry in Quy Chau faces many difficulties. According to Mr. Le My Trang, head of the district's veterinary station, in 2015, vaccination against FMD reached 75%, swine fever reached 80%, and fowl cholera only reached 47%.

Although the province supported, the number of vaccines was not enough, for example, this spring season, Quy Chau was only given 8,600 doses of THT vaccine for cattle and buffalo while the whole district had 21,290 animals to be vaccinated. That gave rise to a "jealousy" mentality among the people. Like other mountainous districts, besides the awareness of the people who are still too expectant, dependent and subjective, we also have quite a lot of difficulties with the habit of raising livestock in the forest.

Vaccination for poultry in Dien Phu, Dien Chau

Considered one of the localities with a fairly high vaccination rate, in recent years Nam Dan has implemented many drastic and effective measures. Along with doing a good job of propaganda, Nam Dan has built a good grassroots veterinary system, promptly rewarded communes that do well, and strictly handled households that do not comply with vaccination regulations.

However, according to Mr. Nguyen Huu Quoc, Head of the District Veterinary Station, despite efforts, only a few vaccines have a fairly high vaccination rate, such as THT for cattle and buffaloes reaching 78%, swine fever reaching nearly 90%, and rabies reaching 82%. Vaccines such as FMD, Blue Ear, and Avian Influenza are very difficult to administer, and are only administered when there is an epidemic. The entire district has 48,000 pigs and nearly 36,000 cattle and buffaloes, but most of the livestock is still small-scale and scattered, and people's awareness is not high, even farms that raise hundreds of chickens and ducks do not vaccinate all the necessary vaccines. The interest and involvement of communes is still limited, and only a few communes have resolutely handled violations in livestock farming according to regulations, such as Nam Cat, Nam Xuan, and Nam Tan.

Vaccination is an extremely important measure to ensure the safety of livestock, but the vaccination rate of all types of vaccines in the province is still generally low. According to Mr. Dang Van Minh - Deputy Head of the Provincial Veterinary Department, the reason for the low vaccination rate is that some district and commune authorities have not yet resolutely directed vaccination work; administrative sanctions have not been strict for organizations and individuals who do not comply with vaccination for livestock and poultry; and the work of importing and exporting livestock and vaccination at livestock farms and facilities has not been well managed.

Currently, localities are rushing to prepare for the 2016 Spring vaccination campaign. The vaccination period will take place from March 15, 2016 to April 15, 2016. However, up to now, the number of vaccines registered by districts at the Veterinary Department has reached a very low rate, only 61.8% for THT vaccines for cattle and buffalo, while other vaccines such as THT for pigs, DTL, and dog rabies have only reached less than 30% of the target assigned by the province. With such a number of registrations, it is not possible to ensure the protection rate for livestock, so controlling epidemics in localities will face many difficulties.

In order for the periodic vaccination work for this year's spring crop to achieve good results, communes must continue to review and count the total livestock and poultry herds in households, farms, and ranches subject to vaccination to promptly register to buy vaccination vaccines. Communes with low registrations must re-register to ensure 100% of livestock and poultry are subject to vaccination.

Phu Huong