The minister of Agriculture, Animal Industry, and Fisheries, Frank Tumwebaze has called on district veterinary officers to desist from politicking and selling vaccines to farmers to ensure the effective vaccination of animals in areas hit by foot and mouth disease across the country.
Tumwebaze made the remarks yesterday as he handed over half a million doses of vaccines to districts that are affected by the Foot and Mouth Disease ( FMD) in Entebbe.
The ministry has dispatched 500,000 out of the 1.4m doses of the foot and mouth vaccine to be used in places that have been badly hit.
The doses will be distributed to 52 districts along the cattle corridor including Kiruhura, Lwengo, Kazo, Isingiro Lyantonde among others.
Tumwebaze noted that politicising measures to combat the spread of foot and mouth disease in cattle has become a major challenge in fighting the infection.
"We don’t need politics in fighting this diseases. I call upon district veterinary officers that we need to use science to fight mouth and mouth disease not politics. People should not be deceived, focus should be put in the fight against this disease," he said.
He noted that the ministry ordered 2.3 million doses, but due to the negative impact of Covid-19 on industrial production and other activities, the institute has supplied two batches so far.
"I am very pleased to hand over half a million doses of vaccines to vaccinate our animals that were affected by food and mouth disease. Why is it prevalence in the particular district, we need to go and interrogate this with the leaders and know the problems," he said.
The State Minister for Animal Industry, Lt Col Bright Rwamirama asked DVOs to ensure that the vaccine doses are administered to farms neighbouring those with infected animals.
"Recently I heard one MP pushing for the removal of quarantine instead of pushing for the removal of the diseases because quarantine is a symptom but the real problem is foot and mouth disease," he said.
The government in February imposed a total quarantine in five districts after an outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease was confirmed. The districts are: Gomba, Isingiro, Kazo, Kiruhura and Sembabule.
