Travellers utilising the airstrip and Takutu Bridge at Lethem next week will have their footwear and vehicles disinfected as part of a simulation exercise to test local preparedness to deal with an outbreak of the foot-and-mouth disease.
The Ministry of Agriculture will be running the simulation in Region 9 from December 13 to December 17, Cabinet Secretary Dr. Roger Luncheon disclosed on Wednesday at his post-Cabinet news briefing. “Currently Guyana is certified free of foot-and-mouth disease but the disease is quite endemic among the cloven hoof cattle herds of our neighbours. Its occurrence has devastating socio-economic consequences with mandatory quarantines for both human and cattle, the extensive culling of exposed herds, restriction of movement and of course rejection or non-acceptance of exports of cattle and their products,” he said.
He stated that the simulation was not the first and was most likely not going to be the last and noting the seriousness of the disease,
