“It is a matter of enormous national importance to keep Greek livestock resilient and sustainable, to ensure Greek exports are not restricted, and to maintain the added value provided by Greek livestock products, mainly through the enormous export potential of feta cheese, as a key economic factor that strengthens both livestock farmers and the local economies where they operate,” emphasized Agriculture Minister Kostas Tsiaras, after completing the meeting chaired by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, with regional governors in areas recording the highest number of sheep and goat pox cases.
“There is a very small number of cases. It’s almost the same as the number of cases we had last year at exactly the same time. Of course, we must know that this is largely due to low temperatures, essentially because we are in the heart of winter. This is precisely why we must intensify biosecurity measures in the coming period, so that by summer we can, through specific procedures and through a specific plan that exists, contain and eliminate the disease,” the minister emphasized.
Tsiaras on sheep pox: “We are at the lowest point of the curve, there is a very small number of cases”
Minister Kostas Tsiaras after the meeting emphasized the following: “The meeting chaired by the Prime Minister with Regional Governors in areas recording the highest number of pox cases has just concluded. The discussion concerned strengthening biosecurity measures, how our country will address this specific disease with its particular epidemiological characteristics, and how we can ensure the sustainability of Greek livestock farming. I believe everyone agreed that biosecurity measures will be intensified even more in the coming period, with specific guidelines and cooperation mainly from the state with the Regions, but also with the Ministry of Citizen Protection. With controls, with systematic effort to contain and eradicate the disease, with the basic criterion being how we can make Greek livestock farming sustainable, resilient and even more productive.”
“Right now we are at the lowest point of the curve. There is a very small number of cases. It’s almost the same as the number of cases we had last year at exactly the same time. Of course, we must know that this is largely due to low temperatures, essentially because we are in the heart of winter. This is precisely why we must intensify biosecurity measures in the coming period, so that by summer we can, through specific procedures and through a specific plan that exists, contain and eliminate the disease,” he added.
“Greek exports must not be restricted”
Regarding the protection of livestock farmers, he emphasized the following: “We have said many times that the measures and their effectiveness are a combination of cooperation between the Ministry of Rural Development, Regional services, and even the livestock farmers themselves. And I think that intensive controls by the Ministry of Citizen Protection during this period must be added to this equation, so that we can manage, together with the existing but also improved legislative framework that will exist, together with the measures that will be intensified and which will essentially update every possibility or any omission that may have been recorded so far, to eradicate the disease in this way. As I told you earlier, it is a matter of enormous national importance to keep Greek livestock farming, as I said earlier, resilient and sustainable, to ensure Greek exports are not restricted, and to maintain the added value provided by Greek livestock products, mainly through the enormous export potential of feta cheese, as a key economic factor that strengthens both livestock farmers and the local economies where they operate.”
For his part, Thessaly Regional Governor Dimitris Kouretas said the following: “We had a very good discussion with the Regional Governors and Ministers to ensure coordination ahead of the coming period, so we can address the pox outbreak. What concerns both the government and us right now is how livestock replacement will take place. That is, according to European regulation, currently someone cannot bring animals to replace those that have been culled because there is pox, so we need to see how this reconstruction will happen. This discussion will take place next week, because livestock replacement concerns all of us, both us and the government. These people, that is, should not leave the profession. This is the whole discussion, how we can support livestock farming.”
“We discussed with Regional Governors who have the most cases during this period and the message we gave was one and only: strict biosecurity measures. If we manage to implement them at a rate above 90%, we will eliminate the disease. Right now the disease, due to weather and measures, has a major decline and the next two and a half months is the golden opportunity to be able to eliminate the disease from the country,” noted Charalampos Billinis, President of the National Scientific Committee for Management and Control of Pox, Professor of Virology and Viral Diseases and Rector of the University of Thessaly.
