Iraq (02): (Baghdad, Nineveh) buffalo, fatal, Request for information

Date: Mon 17 Feb 2025
Source: Al Aalem [in Arabic, machine trans., abridged, edited]
https://tinyurl.com/4fns7jzc


For days, herds of buffaloes and calves in Iraq have been subjected to sudden and mass death...due to an epidemic of unknown origin and causes. Despite the Ministry of Agriculture's assurances that what afflicted these livestock was due to foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), doubts remain about the shipment of imported calves infected with the plague.

Today, Monday [17 Feb 2025], the head of the Parliamentary Finance Committee, Atwan Al-Atwani, called for an urgent investigation into the mass deaths of livestock in Iraq. Al-Atwani said in a statement followed by Al-Aalem Al-Jadeed, "What the buffaloes are exposed to is similar to 'genocide,' due to the spread of epidemics of unknown origin and causes."

He called for "an urgent investigation into the widespread reports that a shipment of infected calves was imported into the country, which led to the spread of the virus carried by the shipment, causing losses estimated at billions."

The Ministry of Agriculture denied yesterday, Sunday [16 Feb 2025], the entry of a shipment of infected and diseased calves, and confirmed that the mass deaths of buffaloes occurred in the areas east of Baghdad, especially Al-Fadhiliyah, where these buffaloes were infected with foot-and-mouth disease, which is an endemic disease in Iraq since the 1930s and emerges from time to time whenever the appropriate conditions are available, including a drop in temperatures.

The Ministry of Agriculture imposed a "curfew" on calves and buffaloes between Baghdad and the rest of the governorates, considering it a hotspot for infections. The rate of foot-and-mouth disease infections among livestock in Iraq over the past years has ranged between 5000 and 20 000 infections annually among calves, cows, sheep and goats.

Municipal departments in the eastern Baghdad areas revealed that dozens of tons of dead livestock are removed daily, while some buffalo breeders revealed that one person among them lost 150 head of buffalo at once, as they all died.

The Veterinary Department of the Ministry of Agriculture announced yesterday, Sunday [16 Feb 2025], a ban on the movement of animals to and from the disease hotspots infected with foot-and-mouth disease for a period of 14 days.

The Director General of the Veterinary Department, Thamer Habib Al-Khafaji, pointed out that "all veterinary hospitals and clinics in Baghdad and all governorates are directed to be fully mobilized to investigate the incidence of foot-and-mouth disease in Baghdad and the governorates," stressing "a set of recommendations regarding investigation operations by intensifying the role of monitoring and epidemiological investigation of the disease and following all veterinary health procedures in cases of death and emphasizing the prevention of the movement of animals from areas of infection hotspots and transportation from one governorate to another and following the sanitary burial procedures."

He stressed "the importance of completing the immune assessment campaign in the central laboratories to verify the infection rate and the serotype of the circulating virus, provided that the samples taken for assessment from animals suspected of being infected are from visible lesions," calling on "breeders to assist the veterinary teams implementing the investigation and monitoring campaign to preserve the safety of their animals and thus preserve livestock as an important source of food production and national income."

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