Status of foot-and-mouth disease eradication programs. South America, 2004

Abstract

[General situation] The national programs for the prevention, control and eradication of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), within the framework of the Plan for Eradication of Foot-and- Mouth Disease (PHEFA), continued in operation during the year. The countries reported that their programs reached 100% coverage of their territories and of the universe of herds and bovine population and of other susceptible species in South America. The programs carried out sanitary activities in a universe of 5.4 million herds and 332 million bovines, together with 63 million ovines, 18 million caprines, 43 million swine and 6.3 million camelids. To cover their territories and develop activities, veterinary services used a total of 2,761 local attention units with 4,294 veterinarians and 8,026 assistants. The programs attended to a total of 1,547 notifications of suspicions of vesicular disease and detection was made of 109 FMD outbreaks and 463 Vesicular Stomatitis (VS) cases, while the rest of the attended suspicions were disregarded.