The ministry of agriculture, animal industries and fisheries has reaffirmed a policy shift for farmers to pay for mandatory foot and mouth disease (FMD) vaccines via a government platform as opposed to the distribution of free vaccines.
Bright Rwamirama, the state minister for animal industry says the move is to cut costs and ensure compliance of farmers as FMD ravages the livestock sector.
The current FMD outbreak began in October 2023.
When the affected districts were put under quarantine, government implemented several interventions including vaccination campaigns, vaccine importation and establishment of national and district FMD task forces among others.
To control the upsurge of FMD, Uganda procured 900,000 doses which were distributed to 23 districts.
On 23rd this month government procured more three (3) million doses of FMD vaccines from Egypt of which 1.3 m doses have been distributed to 27 districts.
Rwamirama says the next phase of mass vaccination which will commence in July 2024 will see farmers pay for vaccines twice a year with government bearing the cost of administering the vaccine.
" The vaccination process will continue for the next three years and animals will be vaccinated twice a year. However, the farmers are hereby informed that they will be paying for the next vaccination process coming after this and they need to prepare for it," Rwamirama said.
Out of 9.8 million doses of FMD vaccines procured by the government of uganda, 3.9 million have been delivered and 2.18 million of these have been received by livestock farmers across 50 districts.
Government is using the risk based vaccination strategy to achieve the 80% herd immunity in hotspots and high-risk areas to prevent future outbreaks