Thailand’s blanket vaccination for Lumpy skin disease to take off in June

Some 300,000 doses of LSD vaccine will arrive in mid-June following the recent distribution of 60,000 doses early this month to cope with the outbreaks reported in 40 out of 76 provinces across Thailand.

The first batch was delivered to Kalasin province, northeast of Thailand, where the outbreak was reported in 18 districts.

Dr Sorawit Thaneeto, director-general Department of Livestock Development, said the Department initially sets aside 30 million baht to procure vaccines together with insect repellents to distribute to cattle farmers across the country. Nevertheless, the vaccines are far from sufficient as there are more than 6 million cattle across the country.

Ministry of Agriculture also welcomes cattle farmers to import the vaccine and donate to DLD for registration.

DLD now restricts cattle and buffalo movement in infected provinces and apply blanket vaccination to contain the outbreak.

The disease is transmitted by blood-feeding insects, for example flies, mosquitoes and ticks.

Lumpy skin disease cases have been reported since 2019 in Bangladesh, India, and China, while in 2020 it was detected in Nepal, Bhutan and Hong Kong, and this year in Sri Lanka and lately in Thailand, Myanmar Laos and Malaysia.