The Vietnam Customs has ordered local offices to strengthen the management of imported live cattle.

It said that all live cattle arriving in the country must be checked to ensure they carried the correct paperwork, including quarantine papers.

Customs offices and teams in provinces were told to make sure that there were no cattle smuggled in from neighbouring Laos and Cambodia and that they strictly punished illegal carriers and traders.

Customs offices were also told to join hand with border guards, police, cattle quarantine offices and local authorities to achieve better results.

Dang Cong Hoan, chief of Nghe An Customs' secretariat, said that so far no provinces and cities had reported any cattle epidemics thanks to strict checks.

In some provinces, such as Nghe An and Ha Tinh in the central region, vaccinations against cattle diseases were slowly implemented due to a shortage of veterinarians, said Hoan.

Most districts arranged only one injection a year, but regulations called for two.-VNA