Days after President Cyril Ramaphosa’s declaration of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) as a national disaster in his recent State of the Nation Address (SONA), Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen was on hand in the Western Cape on Sunday, where the province’s vaccine rollout started. 

Premier Alan Winde, as well as Agriculture, Economic Development and Tourism MEC Dr Ivan Meyer, oversaw the mass vaccination of livestock against FMD disease in the Fisantekraal area in Cape Town.

The vaccinations form part of the Western Cape Department of Agriculture’s 21-point action plan to combat the national FMD outbreak in the Western Cape, where the Department of Agriculture will deploy veterinarians and animal health technicians to vaccinate about 450 cattle.

The provincial government has been intensifying efforts to safeguard the province’s R13.5 billion livestock sector. Winde said that the province has been relatively free of FMD, and the cattle they were vaccinating were free-roaming cattle to minimise the risk. 

He said none of the cattle vaccinated had tested positive for FMD, and they were being proactive.

“We had one outbreak in November last year, which we contained very, very quickly and dealt with it, and then we didn’t have any more symptoms being shown or outbreaks until 10 days ago in Mbekweni, Paarl. We immediately called our disaster management team together, and they got vaccinated immediately. 

“Since then, over the last 10 days, we’ve had various outbreaks. We’ve had some in Makhaza, Mfuleni, in the Khayelitsha region, exactly the same thing.

“We have one other outbreak that’s in the dairy system between Mossel Bay and George,” Winde said.

Winde said that on Thursday evening, they got 20,000 vaccines, and on Saturday morning, they recorded symptoms of FMD in George, and immediately took 5000 vaccines.

He added that the province will be receiving 200,000 vaccines in the coming week. 

“We’ve got a system when the 200,000 arrive, who will get first, how we make sure we mitigate that risk, but it’s a huge part of our economy. 50,000 jobs rely on this economy, and then of course, there’s the informal economy, but that’s why we are here, making sure that we are protecting the whole economy across the board,” Winde said.

Steenhuizen said that the three provinces heavily affected are KwaZulu-Natal, Free State and North West.

“KZN remains the epicentre, but the Free State and the North West province are also very, very heavily affected. When those vaccines arrive, obviously, the distribution will be based on the heat map, and we’ll start getting into those areas as quickly as possible to start the vaccinating. We’re vaccinating every animal in those provinces; they will all be vaccinated during the course of the year,” Steenhuisen said.

He explained that FMD has had a massive impact on the country.

“There’s both the local impact on losses that farmers feel as a result of loss of livestock, loss of livelihood, and being unable to move animals around. Dairy gets particularly affected, but the other impact, of course, is that we cannot export into other countries. 

“There are many, many countries that have been closed off to South Africa for decades, where we should be able to supply red meat,” he said.

“And that is why, for the first time in 30 years, we now have a proactive vaccination strategy that is going to vaccinate the entire national herd, so that we can make this the last major outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease that South Africa ever has.”

State Veterinarian in the Western Cape, Dr Solomon Bhandi, said that the significance of them vaccinating is “that it does not necessarily prevent them from getting the virus, but what it does is that the vaccine prevents the severity of clinical signs in the animals gets, and again, the rate of transmission is reduced”.

Local farmer, Nikelo Nobethe, 67, who has 11 cattle, said that they welcomed the vaccination drive.

“We were scared of the diseases that were accumulating, and at the same time, we were not happy as we didn’t have funds to vaccinate our cattle. We are happy with what the government has done.”

Winde added that citizens should not be worried about it affecting them, as people can’t get it from the meat and milk. 

“In dairies, anyway, if they did pick it up, they would pasteurise twice. There are protocols in place.”

theolin.tembo@inl.co.za

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