JAKARTA: Commission IV of the House of Representatives has urged the Agriculture Ministry to ask the government to declare the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak as a national disaster so that vaccine procurement can be expedited (pic).
The status of the outbreak, which is yet to be raised to the level of a national disaster, has limited the supply of vaccines from the Agriculture Ministry to 1 million even though there are around 18 million heads of cattle that need to be vaccinated, head of Commission IV, Sudin, informed during a meeting with the Agriculture Ministry here on Thursday, according to a press release.
“One million vaccines, (that is) enough for (how many)? For East Java alone, it is not enough. Come on, take this as a national disaster, report it to the President, National Development Planning Agency, and the Finance Ministry,” Sudin said.
During the working meeting, director general of livestock and animal health at the Agriculture Ministry, Nasrullah, said that his administration has supplied 1 million vaccines for handling the foot-and-mouth disease.
“For the time being, we have supplied 1 million vaccines, which were sourced from state budget from activities revision,” he informed.
Nasrullah further said that the ministry will buy three million vaccines from France.
To this, Sudin replied that so far, there has been no agreement between the French government and the ministry regarding vaccine procurement.
“Don’t lie to me. France has not had a deal with you for the purchase of three million vaccines. Be honest, if this can’t be bought in France, (can it be bought from) Malaysia or not? (Sure). Is there any in Vietnam? Of course. Australia is also ready to help. That’s what I mean,” he added.
He also urged that in the future, the FMD vaccine not be commercialized because, besides the ministry, PT Biofarma is currently known to be pursuing a similar vaccine in Brazil.
“Biofarma has already left for Brazil. Before you (did anything), they had already (done something first). Don’t let this FMD vaccine become commercialized. I don’t want it. (Think of) the people who already have it difficult, (do you really want to make it) harder (for them) again,” he said.
Sudin also criticized the ministry’s efforts to send officials to Brazil to learn about handling FMD. He deemed the trip was in vain, saying the Brazilian government has not succeeded in overcoming FMD in the past 50 years.
It is better for the ministry to learn from Australia, which has remained free from an FMD outbreak, he opined.
