PESHAWAR, Jan 3: The Awami National Party-led provincial government has completed development projects worth Rs229 million in livestock and dairy development sector during last four and a half years in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Provincial Minister for Livestock and Cooperatives Hidayatullah Khan claimed this while briefing media persons about performance of his department.

He said that his department was responsible for application as well as basic research to improve health and production of animals, development of potent and effective vaccines against infections/contagious livestock diseases and surveillance, diagnosis and control of such diseases.

The development projects completed by the research wing of Livestock and Dairy Development Department include introduction of Neeli Ravi and Azakhel buffaloes at livestock research and development station Surezai, Peshawar; enhancement of livestock productivity through improved research and development methodology in D.I. Khan; Up-gradation of veterinary research and diagnostic laboratory, Balogram, Swat; strengthening of veterinary research and diagnostic centre, D.I Khan; pilot project for improved milk and meat in KP through farmers’ participation; preparation and evaluation of foot and mouth disease vaccine, molecular characterisation of brucella species prevalent in cattle in KP, etc.

The Veterinary Research Institute, Peshawar, and its regional disease investigation centres in Swat, Kohat, D.I. Khan and Abbottabad during last five years processed 151,303 samples, 114,667 post-mortems and attended 2,076 outbreaks for diagnosis of various infectious diseases.

The biological production centre, responsible for production and standardisation/quality control of vaccines, produced five different types of viral and bacterial vaccines including haemorrhagic septicemia vaccine, black quarter vaccine, enterotoxemia vaccine, anthrax spore vaccine, HS oil-based vaccine, Newcastle disease vaccine, etc.

A total of 85,000 million doses of viral, 42.438 million doses of bacterial and 10 million doses of auto vaccines were produced during last about five years. — APP