AgriSA welcomes foot and mouth disease national disaster declaration
AgriSA says that it welcomes the announcement by President Cyril Ramaphosa during the State of the Nation Address (SONA) declaring the ongoing foot and mouth disease (FMD) outbreak a national disaster.
The organisation says that the declaration reflects the seriousness of the current bio-security threat facing South Africa’s livestock sector, and also acknowledges the profound economic, food security, and trade implications of the outbreak.
CEO Johann Kotzé says a lot of assistance will be needed with administering vaccinations.
“There’s no chance that we would be able to manufacture (the vaccine) specifically for the outbreaks that we have. We need to solve the issue as it is, and for that we need outside vaccines coming into South Africa. You need to centralise it, purely for the sake of being able to have the same kind of framework throughout all the provinces itself and the next thing is, you need to bring in private vets, private people to help and assist with the outbreaks and help and assist with the vaccinations.”