Kazakhstan Agriculture Ministry accuses Austrian veterinary services of negligence

“As for Schmallenberg virus, the animals were transported to Kazakhstan in September, but according to the report provided by the Austrian party this February, 90 percent of all the Austrian cattle had this virus in July-August. So when the cattle supply to Kazakhstan was organized, Austrian veterinary services already knew that almost all its cattle was sick with this disease. This once again certifies that the negligence of the Austrian veterinary services caused us loss of so much time to prove and discover it,” Gulmira Issayeva said.

According to the Vice-Minister, despite of the fact that the Austrian party is now trying to find excuses for their actions, they have got proof in the form of the verbatim records of the communications of Russian, Kazakhstan and Austrian veterinary services. Kazakhstan Agriculture Ministry has also got the correspondence between veterinary services of Austria and Kazakhstan.

“The Austrian veterinary services offered an official apology for failing to timely notify of Schmallenberg because they didn't give it much importance. In our case we were offended with Austria’s position, as Kazakhstan is an independent country. We are a member of the Customs Union and we have clear agreements on timely notification of any diseases. When that big supply of the high-yield cattle to Kazakhstan was being readied, Austrian veterinary service had to notify us of the mass infection with Schmallenberg that started in July.”

According to the Vice-Minister, managers of Poltavskoye and Leonov farms where sick cattle was registered cooperated with the Agriculture Ministry and were ready for the extermination.

“As for their statements reported by the media, most probably there was a misunderstanding or those were taken out of the context, which in the end created a picture of these farmers not fulling understanding the extent of the critical situation. No, the farmers are on our side and we will take joint decisions,” she explained.

According to Issayeva, the Ministry made a decision that the general algorithm will be used for further procurement of cattle abroad and a unified list of diseases will be formed. The research will be held first, then quarantine, then reference research and transportation followed by another quarantine and more researches at the territory of Kazakhstan. The decision on the animals’ health will be taken after these procedures.

“If we had been timely informed that the animals were collected from the 100 troubled areas, we would have provided a quicker respond to this situation. 722 cows that were supplied to Kazakhstan were collected from 424 farms. This means that the cattle were collected from very small farms. 19 of these 424 farms are acknowledged troubled for virus diarrhea,” Issayev said.

Earlier Tengrinews.kz English reported that a dangerous virus imported from Austria caused extermination of elite cattle in North-Kazakhstan oblast. Several days later Austrian party refuted the statement of Kazakhstan Agriculture Ministry on import of sick animals.

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