Living with Animal Diseases: Agrarian Organizations in Castilla y León Call for Vaccine Commitment

The agrarian and livestock organizations of Castilla y León have assured that it is necessary to “To learn to live together” with animal diseases such as bovine tuberculosis, since “It is impossible to eradicate a disease if you do not commit to a vaccine, as happened with the covid”.

This was confirmed this Friday to EFE by the general coordinator of the Professional Agrarian Organization (OPA) UCCL in Castilla y León, Jesús Manuel González Palacínwho has underlined that Community farmers are “to the crown” to slaughter cows with tuberculosis and that “the problem will not end up being fixed”.

“If cows have to be sacrificed, it is done, but We are not willing to accept the immobilization of the cabin”, Palacín has expressed, who has argued that “nothing happens” if the prevalence of this disease in the Community rises one year, as is happening in provinces such as Salamanca.

Also, since the UCCL have criticized the fact that the European Union uses a “double yardstick” with the member states, since tuberculosis sanitation control is only practiced in 4 or 5 member countries, such as Spain, while others, such as in France, it is not practiced because in its day “They said they were free of tuberculosis, but it’s not like that, because there have been cases of cows arriving from France with the disease”.

That is why the takeover bid has asked the EU to “update its obsolete regulation” and to modify it from “top to bottom”, since “The only way to eradicate tuberculosis is with a vaccine.”

“Either we live with the disease or we commit to research and the mandatory vaccine, like so many others out there,” Palacín has defended.

The debate raised these days originated with a regulation approved on May 15 by the Ministry of Agriculture (Vox) that allowed bovine tuberculosis controls to be relaxed, which triggered in that the Ministry of Agriculture issued an order restricting the movement from the cattle herd of Castilla y León -except Burgos, Valladolid and León- towards other autonomies and EU States.

A ministerial order that resulted in the application of some precautionary measures on the regulation of the Ministry to which the Board informed yesterday that it “would not oppose”, so the situation returned to the pointthat is, to the regulations prior to May 15.

In this sense, from the UCCL have valued the support for the sector of the Board and they have recognized that the regional administration has “very little room for manoeuvre” in this regard.

Finally, the OPA has also warned that in this problem there is “many lobbies and interests” por part of sectors such as pharmacists and veterinarianswho have their “chiringuitos” with health controls or tests such as “tuberculin”, Palacín has added.