Thailand hosts int'l FMD conference

BANGKOK, June 27 (TNA) - Agriculture ministers from 30 countries, as well as experts and academics from 175 member states of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Organization for Animal Health or the Office International des Epizooties (OIE) are gathering in Thailand to discuss the foot and mouth disease (FMD) and plans to get rid of the disease over the next eight years. Thai Deputy Prime Minister Chumpol Silapa-archa inaugurated the 2nd FAO/OIE Global Conference on Foot and Mouth Disease Control in Bangkok Wednesday, jointly organized by the FAO and the Thai Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives from June 27-29. The participants are discussing policies to control the foot and mouth disease and expect to eradicate it within 2020. Thai Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister Theera Wongsamut acknowledged that the foot and mouth disease is a communicable disease for even-toed animals including cows, buffaloes, goats and pigs, which has cost great damages and budgets to contain it by affected economies. Theera said that several countries have successfully been free from the FMD, including Japan, Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand, but it remains as an epidemic in several other countries, and that Thailand is developing a selected region to be free from the disease and hopes to be a center for the diagnoses of the FMD in Southeast Asia in the future. (TNA)