Agri Dept concerned about foot-and-mouth disease spread in Free State

The Department of Agriculture is concerned that foot-and-mouth disease continues to spread among cattle populations with the spillover becoming increasingly evident in the Free State.

Appearing before Parliament’s portfolio committee on Tuesday, officials said while KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) remains the epicentre of the disease, hundreds of cases are sprouting in other provinces too.

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One million doses of vaccine arrived from Argentina on Saturday and both KZN and the Free State will receive 200,000 doses each to contain the spread.

Director general Mooketsa Ramasodi said outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease are still being reported for a number of reasons, including the illegal movement of infected animals, false health declarations and auctions.

The Western Cape is the latest province to report an outbreak but there also increasing cases in the Eastern Cape.

“There are many dairy animals in those areas, so we have to protect the dairies from getting the disease.”

The department expects another consignment of 1.5 million vaccines to arrive in the country this week.

“We haven’t really moved focus from KwaZulu-Natal, but we are including the Free State in terms of trying to arrest the disease in these two provinces.”

Ramasodi said the provinces have all started to collect their allocation of the first batch of imported vaccines, with Limpopo and Mpumalanga each receiving 100,000 doses, as buffalo herds also threaten the continued spread of the disease.