Concern over foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in Murang’a County

An alarm has been sounded over the outbreak of the dreaded foot-and-mouth disease in Murang’a County.
While confirming that the disease spread in Makuyu, Deputy Director for Veterinary Services in the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, Dr Jane Njuguna, said farmers are advised to report any cases immediately and avoid translocating their animals.
The official spoke at Kenol, Murang’a South, during a public consultation forum for the proposed Veterinary Services Development Fund Draft Regulations 2024, aimed at reviewing funding for the sector.
Dr Njuguna said farmers and transporters of animals must get permits from veterinary officers in order to check the spread of the disease, which can easily wipe out herds.
“All farmers and transporters of livestock must get a permit from the local veterinary office, whether there is an outbreak or no,t so that we can check the movement of animals from one place to another in order to reduce the spread of the disease,” she stated.
Current constitution
The Deputy Director said the Veterinary Fund Regulations, which were developed in 1996, are being reviewed to align with the current constitution, which devolved most agricultural services to the counties.
“We are reviewing the regulations so that they can conform to the 2010 constitution, which ushered in a devolved system of governance. We want to separate the sources of revenue since the counties have been collecting their own resources,” Njuguna added.
Once it becomes reviewed and operational, she explained, the Fund will be used for emergency purposes and disease surveillance in case of an outbreak like in the case of the foot-and-mouth disease and purchase reagents to control it.
At the same time, the official allayed fears that there were shortages of vaccines, maintaining that the department had enough stocks and that all that county governments needed to do was place orders for supplies.
Farmers attending the forum had raised concerns about the lack of vaccines and other drugs used to treat their animals and urged the government to allocate more funds for the purpose.
A farmers’ representative, Njuguna Kibe, said they are forced to pool resources and order vaccines or drugs from individual veterinary officers as they could not access government stocks.
Kibe also said the public should be involved in the running of the Veterinary Fund to avoid cases of misappropriation of the resources.