The livestock industry lost thousands of billions of VND because of the disease

​Avian influenza still has a high risk of recurrence in 2022 (Industrial chicken farm in Long Duc Commune, Long Thanh District). Photo: Phan Anh

In a period when the livestock industry is facing many difficulties such as high production costs and volatile markets due to the impact of the Covid-19 epidemic, controlling animal diseases is a key issue to protect the achievements of the livestock industry. This is also an important factor to ensure food supply for the market.

Great damage

According to a report by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, in 2021, diseases in terrestrial and aquatic livestock will still develop complicatedly, causing economic losses of over VND2.5 trillion. Specifically, avian influenza occurred in 125 communes of 33 provinces and cities, forcing the destruction of more than 457,000 poultry, an increase of 1.6 times compared to 2020. Last year, the whole country had 3 strains of influenza virus. Endemic poultry A/H5N1, A/H5N6 and A/H5N8 are new strains that have infected Vietnam since mid-2021. During the year, African swine fever also occurred in 3,154 communes of 60 provinces and cities, forcing the destruction of more than 288.6 thousand pigs, 3.2 times higher than in 2020.

A new disease that has entered Vietnam since the end of 2020 and continues to cause great damage in 2021 is a skin rash on buffaloes and cows. All year, this epidemic occurred in 4,349 communes of 55 provinces and cities; The number of infected cattle was nearly 207.7 thousand, the number of cattle destroyed was more than 29,000.

Particularly in the aquaculture industry, the prevention and control of aquatic diseases have achieved important results, the infected aquaculture area decreased sharply by 33% compared to 2020 but still more than 5.6 thousand ha of aquaculture area infected with epidemics and diseases. In addition, many other diseases such as foot-and-mouth disease, porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome, etc. also have a significant impact on the livestock industry.

Pointing to the risks of the source of disease transmission in the livestock industry, Mr. Dao Xuan Truc, Vice President of the Vietnam Livestock Association said that recently, many diseases appeared on livestock in Vietnam due to the import of livestock products from other countries. Other livestock diseases also have the risk of continuing to infect Vietnam, especially dangerous because these new diseases are capable of being transmitted between animals and humans. The Vietnam Livestock Association has made many recommendations that Vietnam needs to strengthen technical barriers, especially in animal quarantine with imported livestock products. The tightening of technical barriers in the import of livestock products to protect domestic livestock, minimize the loopholes for the entry of diseases.

Eczema on cattle causes great damage to farmers in 2021. In the photo: A Cow farm in Xuan Dong Commune, Cam My District. Photo: Phan Anh

In recent years, the world is facing the risk of emergence and spread of emerging or re-emerging infectious diseases in humans, domestic animals and wildlife. Diseases that are transmitted from animals to humans are a constant threat that affects human health, livestock, economy and society. Emerging infectious diseases that have been recorded in Vietnam recently include: Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), avian influenza A/H5N1, A/H1N1...with high fatal rates in humans. Although from February 2014 up to now, Vietnam has not detected any new cases of avian influenza A/H5N1 in humans, the risk of transmission of this disease from poultry to humans is always present due to influenza epidemics in the family. Poultry continues to occur in many localities across the country and the habit of close contact between humans and livestock.

In addition, swine streptococcus disease in humans with severe clinical picture, expensive treatment, high mortality rate and if cured, also leaves many severe sequelae is currently complicated with the number of cases and deaths does not decrease annually. The reason is that people still keep the habit of eating blood pudding.

Currently, Vietnam is still facing long-standing infectious diseases such as rabies. In 2021, the total number of people who have been bitten by dogs for preventive treatment across the country is more than 531,000 with 53 deaths from rabies, a decrease of 25 deaths compared to 2020. But rabies is still one of the infectious diseases with the leading number of deaths among infectious diseases in Vietnam. In which, more than 90% of human rabies cases are caused by infection from dogs. The cause of this epidemic still causes great damage because in 2021 alone, the whole country has more than 11.7 thousand dogs going around, not chained, or wearing muzzles, which are handled in 22 provinces and cities. The risk of rabies disease continues to appear in the near future is still high; Among them are the reasons why the management of dogs in some local governments is still not good, the local authorities have not fully directed the departments to coordinate in implementation, dog owners do not comply with the registration and raising of dogs, the condition of dogs letting loose is common. In addition, the rate of rabies vaccination for dogs and cats is lower than the target set by the Program; The number of vaccinated dogs is mainly according to the local annual plan, which is lower than the total number of real dogs (in many localities the vaccination rate is less than 30%). The application of sanctions to handle violations of regulations on management of domestic dogs and vaccination against rabies for dogs has not been strictly implemented according to regulations.

In the prevention and control of diseases transmitted from animals to humans, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Ministry of Health have had many cooperation programs. In particular, the Department of Animal Health currently has 5/8 laboratories that have tested over 1 million samples of SARS-CoV-2 on humans in more than 20 provinces and cities. The capacity of the Department of Animal Health can support the Health sector to test for SARS-CoV-2 virus (Covid-19) about 7,600 samples per day. The two ministries will continue to focus on drastically and synchronously implementing measures to prevent and control epidemics and limit zoonotic diseases in 2022.

Phan Anh 

Since the beginning of 2022, many dangerous diseases in animals have appeared and show signs of continuing to spread on a large scale. Specifically, African swine fever has occurred in 321 communes of 36 provinces and cities, forcing the destruction of more than 19.6 thousand pigs. Outbreak of skin rash on cattle occurred in 17 communes of 2 provinces and cities. There were 4 outbreaks of avian influenza in the whole country, with a total of 13,600 infected birds dying and destroyed.

The risk of epidemics from animals spreading to humans