As the foot and mouth disease outbreak in Kompong Cham province continues to subside, a new outbreak in Kratie province has infected around 300 cattle and buffalos this month, officials said yesterday.
Samreth Oeun, Prek Prasap district’s Sorb commune chief, said yesterday that roughly 300 animals had been infected since the start of the month, but that no deaths had been reported yet.
Mr Oeun said many cattle had been infected because their owners had not chosen to vaccinate them when the outbreak started. “Some of the people did not understand the importance of the vaccination,” he said, adding that this year’s outbreak was more serious than last year when only cattle were affected.
Sey Kim Yeang, a 52-year-old farmer from Sorb commune’s Prek Raka village, said yesterday that two of her buffalos were infected last week, adding that she had not been able to afford the cost of buying medicine to treat her animals, which can run between $25 and $50.
“I believe in the medicine, but I do not have enough money to buy it,” she said.
The foot and mouth disease outbreak in Kratie comes after a horror stretch in Kompong Cham province, where provincial animal health chief Sruo Sroeun says nearly 30,000 animals were infected during the first nine months of the year.
Mr Sroeun said that 28,151 cattle and 1,169 buffalos had been infected with foot and mouth since January, including more than 10,000 animals between July and September. Of the infected this year, 806 cows and 172 buffalos died, Mr Sroeun added.
“It was a bigger outbreak than last year,” he said, adding that only a few animals in Batheay district were still affected.
In Siem Reap province’s Puok district, a foot and mouth outbreak that started in September appears to have been curbed, Keo Poa commune chief Loh Lay said yesterday.
Mr Lay said more than 600 cattle had been infected with the disease and 140 had died during the outbreak. Many farmers were currently unable to use their cattle because they were still recovering from the disease, he added.
