HEIDELBERG, South Africa (AP) — South Africa embarked on a mass vaccination of cattle on Friday to stem an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease that threatens to disrupt meat, dairy and livestock supplies and exports.
The outbreak, which started intensifying late last year and has rapidly spread across the country's livestock industry, has already affected more than 297,000 cattle and resulted in over 120 000 animals being culled as farmers try to contain
the spread.
The outbreak threatens mass shortages of meat, job losses and millions of dollars in lost revenue as countries including China and Zambia ban South African meat exports.
Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen on Friday launched the country’s rollout of vaccines, with a million vaccines delivered from Turkey in recent days.
More vaccines are expected to arrive this weekend, but there are concerns that the supply is way less than the required doses to vaccinate almost 12 million cattle.
“The one strategy that we have ultimately adopted is the mass vaccination strategy. So we can get ahead of the foot-and-mouth disease in South Africa and ensure that we can prevent outbreaks from happening rather than reacting to outbreaks,” said Steenhuisen.
The coastal province of KwaZulu-Natal has been identified as the hot spot for the outbreak, with over 17,000 farms affected. It has been officially declared as a national disaster, a legal framework that will allow the government to allocate emergency funds that will mostly be used to procure vaccines.
The national treasury has allocated about $25 million to fight the outbreak, which will mostly be used to buy vaccines.
Farmers and meat producers are already struggling, having had to quarantine affected animals and stop all trade and exports while dealing with a short supply of vaccines in the country.
Dr. Dirk Verwoerd, a veterinarian at South Africa's largest meat producer, Karan Beef, said the damage caused by the outbreak is impacting all parts of the meat and dairy industry.
“You have massive damage upstream and downstream,” he told The Associated Press. "You cannot purchase cows, so your primary producers now sit with them. They can’t sell, and we can't purchase. You cannot slaughter, so the consumer pays the price.”
Karan Beef's feedlot in Heidelberg is the biggest in the country, covering 2,300 hectares (5,680 acres) which can accommodate more than 140,000 cattle.
“It’s an epidemic that is out of control, completely out of control,” said Verwoerd. "Rampant infections happening in all the provinces, daily, there are just more and more reports. The first target is to get stability. And that’s why we need to vaccinate the national herd, the national population.”
