Along the Mekong, the trafficking in cattle reports big but propagates diseases

It is called the “Larb Ngua Dip”. It is a Laotian specialty made up of chopped beef, jelly, lemon blood, chili and fresh herbs, appreciated as a delicate, refreshing and raised dish. But, in April 2024, in southern Laos, 121 people developed skin lesions and were taken from vomiting after consuming this dish.

It was an anthrax epidemic, caused by infected beef used in the preparation. This disease has been largely contained by the vaccination of livestock in the Mekong region over the past twenty years; But she has resurfaced recently.

Diseases affecting animals have also emerged in recent years, threatening more than 1.7 million cattle in the region. This is the case of contagious nodular dermatosis, which has appeared since October 2020 in Burma, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam.

8.5 kilos of beef per person

Other epidemics of this type could follow, as the smuggling of cattle seems to be expanding in the region. Although the practice has not been new, it has become more lucrative in recent years, due to the customs barriers established by the governments of the region in order to master the pandemic of COVID-19 and to protect the livestock from diseases.

Most of the cattle are intended for China and Vietnam. The Chinese are the second consumers of beef in the world in volume, after the United States, with 10.6 million tonnes in 2023. Vietnamese consumes less than 10 % of the Chinese total, but they ate about 8, 5 kilos of beef per person in 2022, double individual Chinese consumption [c’est plus de 21 kilos en France].

Despite this increase in consumption, the Vietnamese livestock is barely enough to satisfy half of the …

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