This story is from December 1, 2018

Farmers seek medicines for cattle down with foot-and-mouth disease

Farmers seek medicines for cattle down with foot-and-mouth disease
Coimbatore: As the highly contagious foot-and-mouth disease has been spreading slowly among the cattle across the district, farmers urged district collector TN Hariharan to take necessary steps to ensure availability of the medicine.
“In the last few weeks, cattle from several areas of Annur block including Vellamadai were diagnosed with the disease.
Officials from the animal husbandry department had checked the cattle. But, medicines are not available anywhere around the locality,” state executive committee member of farmers association V S Kalisami said.
The medicine is available only in the veterinary hospital at Town Hall. A single dose of medicine costs Rs 300, he said. “How is it possible for farmers to go to the hospital, which is more than 30km away from the region, every single time,” he questioned.
“At present, we need the easy availability of medicine,” he said.
To control the disease being spread, the district administration has cancelled the weekly cattle markets in Pollachi and Thudiyalur for two weeks, said an official from animal husbandry.
The disease, commonly known as ‘komari’, would spread among the cattle living along waterbodies.
“After 2013, the disease was again spotted among the cattle across the state. This time, the severity is much lesser than what we witnessed last time as all the cattle were given vaccination once in six months,” he said, adding that special teams were formed to keep the situation under the control.
Morbidity is recorded, but no mortality is recorded till date, he added.
Meanwhile, district collector TN Hariharan assured the farmers and directed the officials to ensure the availability of medicine across the district.
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