Bovine vaccination for foot-and-mouth disease to begin from Thursday in Pune district

PUNE: Beginning Thursday, the animal husbandry department will start a vaccination drive against foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) for more than one million bovines in the district

PUNE: Beginning Thursday, the animal husbandry department will start a vaccination drive against foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) for more than one million bovines in the district. The commissionerate of animal husbandry has sent the required vaccine doses to Pune which produces over 4.5 million litre of milk daily, and is one of the highest milk producers in the state. Vaccine doses have also been sent to Ahmednagar and Beed. According to experts, though FMD is not a zoonotic disease, it can majorly affect the cattle population and meat exports with Pune being one of the largest dairy producers in the state.

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Dr Shitalkumar Mukane, district deputy commissioner of the animal husbandry department, said, “This is the second round since the FMD vaccination programme started in the district. This is a completely central government-funded nationwide programme. Last year despite Covid-19, we vaccinated the entire cattle population (1,057,000) including cows, buffaloes and bulls. From Thursday, we have started vaccinating the entire bovine population and it will now be a regular vaccination programme which is free-of-cost for farmers with only Re1 as registration fee. Each dose costs about Rs35.”

“It is crucial to get cattle vaccinated for FMD because if they are infected with FMD, there is a huge loss in milk production in those animals and the animal becomes unproductive. If a cow is infected, it becomes very difficult for the animal to conceive and it may soon become infertile. In case of bulls, their strength is affected besides the animal becoming infertile. It is not a zoonotic disease but the spread of FMD can majorly hamper even meat exports because no country will buy such infected animals,” Mukane said.

Pune handles more than 25 lakh litre milk and produces 45 lakh litre milk every day which is among the highest production in the country. The central government has sent 1,439,692 doses to Ahmednagar which is the largest milk-producing district in the state; followed 1,030,404 doses to Pune; and 679,327 doses to Beed.