Student volunteers help with animal epidemic prevention

The 72-hour golden window to rescue survivors has passed. Part of the ongoing efforts has been transferred to health workers. But due to an absence of professionals in animal epidemic prevention work, university volunteers have come forth to help. Our reporter Tang Bo has this report from areas affected by the earthquake.

This is the Shengli pig farm in Tianquan County. It is one of the places in Yaan where student volunteers from the Sichuan Agriculture University take part in animal epidemic prevention work. Yuan Jiang, a 25-year old graduate student, is one of these volunteers.

Yuan has finished his Master's thesis, leaving only the thesis defense scheduled in June. This is the first time he takes part in epidemic prevention work, but he has long been eager to do it.

210 students from the University will help with the animal epidemic prevention work. They will make sure all livestock in these regions are healthy.

Students are vaccinating pigs to prevent a possible epidemic. One of the reasons why they are helping in Shiyang Town is that there are not enough epidemic prevention professionals here. But even these volunteers are not enough to get the job done.

There are hundreds of thousands of livestock and live poultry in the region that need vaccination. But only around 80 students who are professionals in this field were sent to the affected areas on Thursday.

Yuan does his best, but as a student, what he can do is still limited. As of Wednesday, more than 12,000 health workers have covered all 95 villages in Lushan and Baoxing counties. But there is still work to be done.