South Africa on Friday began mass vaccination of cattle to contain a foot-and-mouth disease outbreak that has spread across the country’s livestock industry and led to large-scale culling, the government said.
Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen launched the rollout in a campaign designed to “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,” he said.
Officials said the outbreak intensified late last year and has since rapidly spread. In total, it has already affected more than 297,000 cattle, and authorities have culled over 120,000 animals as farmers try to contain further spread.
Steenhuisen said the government has already received a first batch of vaccines, including a million doses delivered from Turkey in recent days. More vaccines are expected to arrive over the weekend, but there are concerns the supply remains well below what officials say is needed to vaccinate almost 12 million cattle.
The coastal province of KwaZulu-Natal has been identified as the hot spot for the outbreak, with more than 17,000 farms affected. The government has declared the province a national disaster, a step it said provides the legal framework to allocate emergency funds, which would be used mostly to procure vaccines.
South Africa’s national treasury has allocated about $25 million to fight the outbreak, and the funding is expected to be directed largely toward buying vaccines. Farmers and meat producers have already been forced to quarantine affected animals and stop all trade and exports while the vaccine supply is short.
At Karan Beef, a company based in Heidelberg and described as South Africa’s largest meat producer, veterinarian Dirk Verwoerd said the disease’s impact is rippling throughout the meat and dairy supply chain. He told The Associated Press that the damage affects both “upstream and downstream,” and that when producers cannot sell animals and cannot purchase new ones, the cost can shift to consumers.
Verwoerd said Karan Beef’s Heidelberg feedlot covers 2,300 hectares (5,680 acres) and can accommodate more than 140,000 cattle. He characterized the outbreak as worsening across the country, saying infections are occurring “in all the provinces,” and added, “It’s an epidemic that is out of control, completely out of control.”
He said the first target is stability, and that vaccination of the national herd is central to achieving it, arguing that “that’s why we need to vaccinate the national herd, the national population.”