By Anita Dangazele
- The Eastern Cape treasury approved R55-million for vaccines and the province has ordered 1.05 million doses from Onderstepoort Biological Products.
- Vaccination teams were treating about 12,000 cattle every day but spokesperson Athule Joka said positive cases were still going up.
Eastern Cape officials vaccinated cattle against foot and mouth disease at a rate of about 12,000 animals a day as the outbreak spread across the country.
More than 90,000 cattle were vaccinated in the province in one week after new supplies arrived. The Eastern Cape treasury approved R55-million for the campaign. The province ordered 1.05 million doses from state-owned supplier Onderstepoort Biological Products, and received 150,000 doses from a national shipment from Argentina.
Department of Rural Development and Agrarian Reform spokesperson Athule Joka said the drive had started but infections had not yet dropped.
“For the vaccine to take effect it will take 10 to 14 days and at this stage results from the samples that were taken earlier on indicate an increase in positive cases,” Joka said.
Joka said the disease usually does not kill adult cattle, but calves can die. Farmers often do not keep records of those deaths.
Teams focused on hotspot areas including the Winnie Madikizela Mandela, Matatiele, Umzimvubu, AB Xuma, Ingquza Hill, Walter Sisulu and Enoch Mgijima municipalities, the James Calata area in Joe Gqabi district, and Buffalo City Metro.
Agri Eastern Cape president Peter Cloete welcomed the campaign but raised concerns about traceability.
“There’s no traceability in a lot of the communal cattle and there are vaccinated cattle without any traceability, which is fundamentally incorrect,” Cloete said.
Cloete warned that cattle must be tagged before the booster programme begins, otherwise farmers would not know if an animal had been vaccinated or had foot and mouth.
The drive is part of the first phase of South Africa’s national 10-year plan to control the disease. Agriculture minister John Steenhuisen told Parliament that campaigns are running in all nine provinces and the national vaccine supply stands at 2.5 million doses.
Pictured above: Cattle in a kraal.
Image source: File