By Charl van Rooyen
The Botswana Vaccine Institute’s foot-and-mouth disease vaccine may become available this week, following the purchase of a large batch. This will allow vaccination efforts to begin in areas where the disease has recently spread.
Meanwhile, the National Treasury has allocated funding for new equipment to resume local vaccine production in South Africa. The machinery has already been acquired and is currently being installed at the existing manufacturing facility in Onderstepoort, near Pretoria.
This marks a positive step for the future of the red meat industry, which took yet another blow this week as the disease was confirmed at the Karan Beef feedlot in Heidelberg, Gauteng, one of the largest cattle feedlots in the world.
Dr Livio Heath, research team manager at the Agricultural Research Council’ Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute, told African Farming that vaccine production could resume within three to four months. Manufacturing had previously been halted due to outdated equipment.
South Africa requires between 300 000 and 500 000 doses of foot-and-mouth disease vaccine annually, and the goal is to produce enough locally to meet this demand, Dr Heath says.
In addition, the National Treasury has allocated funds to build a new vaccine production facility next to the existing plant at Onderstepoort. Once completed, the new facility will have the capacity to produce up to 20 million doses per year, allowing for surplus vaccines to be exported. According to current projections, production at the new plant could begin within three to four years.
African Farming understands that the use of the foot-and-mouth disease vaccine is tightly regulated by the state. It is illegal for private individuals or veterinarians to possess it. At present, the Transboundary Animal Diseases Laboratory at Onderstepoort is the only facility in South Africa authorised to handle the virus or vaccine. This laboratory, which specialises in managing highly infectious and transmissible animal diseases, is also the only local lab accredited to test for foot-and-mouth disease.
Once the vaccine shipment from Botswana arrives in Pretoria, state veterinarians will begin vaccinating cattle in high-priority areas affected by foot-and-mouth disease. Typically, the vaccine is used to prevent the spread of the disease from endemic regions to the rest of the country. In the event of an outbreak, strict restrictions on the movement and transport of susceptible animals are also used to contain the disease.
Delays, costs and controversy
African Farming has learnt that funds for the vaccine procurement have been transferred to Onderstepoort Biological Products (OBP) to facilitate the import from Botswana. Botswana’s vaccine facility had previously been shut down due to non-compliance with stringent protocols, halting South African imports. That issue has since been resolved, and production has resumed – though currently no vaccine doses are available in South Africa.
The price has been set at R100 per dose, with total vaccine expenditure projected to reach about R1,2 billion in the 2025–’26 financial year.
Some stakeholders in the animal health sector are questioning OBP’s involvement across the entire vaccine supply chain, especially given that the handover process bypasses them entirely. Vaccines are transferred at the Botswana–South Africa border directly from a state veterinarian in Botswana to a South African counterpart (holding a Red Cross permit), and then taken straight to the Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute, not to OBP.
“Tax money is therefore being used to fund the OBP to make a profit on the imported vaccine, which is bought at a significantly lower price than the R100 for which it is sold per dose,” said an aggrieved person in the animal health industry.
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