This week, the Department of Agriculture gave the green light for research to determine whether foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is present in the fifth quarter of a bovine 14 days after vaccination or not.
By Alani Janeke, senior journalist at African Farming and Landbouweekblad
The application to conduct this research was submitted to the department’s Animal Health Division shortly after the Agricultural Research Council’s (ARC) FMD Indaba in July in Pretoria. When the application was rejected, the Red Meat Industry Services (RMIS) assisted the researcher in submitting a Section 23 appeal application against this decision.
A Section 23 application under the Higher Courts Act of 2013 deals with the granting of a judgment by default and can be used to appeal against a decision or ruling.
Through this application, the initial decision on the research was referred to Dipeneng Serage, Deputy Director-General of the Department of Agriculture, to review the initial decision.
Also read: Foot-and-mouth disease and desperate farmers: Vaccination holds the key
Significant Losses for Industry
“We were informed on Wednesday the initial decision has been reviewed and the research can now proceed,” Dewald Olivier, Chief Executive of the RMIS, told African Farming at Nampo Cape.
“An application must be made to conduct this type of research since the researchers will be working with the live virus, and it must therefore be handled with caution.”
He said if this research finds the virus is not present in the fifth quarter of a bovine 14 days after vaccination, the losses in the industry could decrease drastically. Currently, the entire animal may only be used six weeks after vaccination, and the industry suffers significant losses.
Also read:
Live exports: Eastern Cape loses more than R1 billion in revenue due to FMD
FMD | Backlog of 15 000 samples at laboratories
FMD | Milk SA announces working group for dairy value chain
FMD | ‘Where exactly is the red zone, minister?’
