DAMMAM, 11 August 2007 — The General Administration for Agricultural Affairs in the Eastern Province has asked the Plant and Animal Quarantine Department in Riyadh to take necessary penal steps against a cattle trader who sold more than 300 sheep allegedly infected with the deadly foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in various markets in the Kingdom. The punishment could range between a suspension of his import license for two years and its permanent cancellation.
Agricultural officials allegedly allowed the trader to keep the diseased animals in his farm with an undertaking that he would not trade in them and keep them in isolation, according to Al-Yaum daily.
In the meantime, the agricultural officials and police have been interrogating the trader to find out who bought the infected animals and where they went.
The agricultural administration in the region has assured the people that there are no confirmed FMD cases in the region. It said officials have inspected all cattle markets and abattoirs in Alkhobar, where some suspicious looking sheep were found recently, and every other town and village in the province and they could not detect a single case of animals suffering from the disease.
An FMD scare reportedly spread in the region last week when the authorities realized that 336 sheep sold by a cattle trader in the Souk Tagba in the Eastern Province were afflicted with the dreaded disease. The authorities also found that he had in his farm another 15 cattle heads affected by FMD.
Agricultural officials learned that the animals carrying the contagion entered the Kingdom across the King Fahd Causeway on June 28. Though it was clear then that the animals showed symptoms of FMD, the samples were sent to Riyadh for confirmation, as there was no quarantine laboratory in the region.
However, the agricultural officials permitted the livestock to enter the country but to be kept in isolation and not to be traded until the test results came from Riyadh.
Shortly after that an agricultural inspector who visited the trader’s farm discovered that the trader sold most of the sheep in various markets including Riyadh and Ahsa.
The mayor’s office in the Eastern Province blamed the agricultural officials for not informing the concerned authorities about the matter when they learned about the afflicted animals in June itself.
Hussein Al-Baloushi, public relations director at the mayor’s office, said immediately on receiving a memo about the afflicted animals, his office took emergency measures to stop the spread of the disease. It alerted all municipalities, governorates and abattoirs to keep watch on all animals and inform the concerned officials if they found any symptoms of the disease. The officials also urged the public to make sure that the meat they buy carried proper municipal seals.
