Foot and mouth disease
Farmers’ Association: Emergency vaccination of animals only as a last resort
In order to contain foot and mouth disease, emergency vaccination is also being discussed. However, the general secretary of the farmers’ association believes that this instrument is misguided at this point in time.
The Secretary General of the German Farmers’ Association, Bernhard Krüsken, currently rejects emergency vaccinations of animals to contain foot-and-mouth disease in Brandenburg. “We don’t yet have the magnitude of the event that requires an emergency vaccination,” he said on Deutschlandfunk. “If we start vaccinating, we will lose a clear view of where the pathogen is traveling.”
During emergency vaccination, animals would be vaccinated within a certain radius around the outbreak site to prevent further spread. However, all vaccinated animals would then also have to be killed. “They are diagnostically indistinguishable from infected animals,” said Krüsken.
Emergency vaccination only makes sense if there is a major event
The emergency vaccination is not an instrument to cure the disease, but only to combat the epidemic. “Therefore, this is an instrument that can only be used when the event is a little larger, i.e. when you no longer have any other choice to contain the outbreak,” he emphasized.
The outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease was discovered last Friday on a buffalo farm in Hönow near Berlin. Krüsken assumes that the animals there had been infected for much longer. “We have now learned that the animals on the farm in Hönow had already formed antibodies,” he said. “This suggests that the outbreak did not just start last week, but started between the holidays.”
The veterinary offices would therefore now have to check all contacts that the farm had in the past two to three weeks. “The faster and more consistently this is cleared up now, the lower the risk that this issue will escalate,” emphasized the Secretary General.
dpa
Source: Stern
