It is likely, though not yet confirmed, that foot-and-mouth disease has finally reached a commercial dairy farm in southern KwaZulu-Natal. This is despite the best efforts of dairy farmers there to prevent this from happening. They are reportedly at their wits’ end.

By Lloyd Phillips, senior journalist at African Farming and Landbouweekblad

There are an estimated 70 000 to 80 000 cattle on commercial dairy farms in southern KwaZulu-Natal. There are tens of thousands more in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands. They are now at dire risk of becoming infected with foot-and-mouth disease, which, unlike with beef cattle, can absolutely devastate dairy cows.

African Farming previously reported that dairy farmers in southern KwaZulu-Natal’s Creighton district had begun roadblocks, allegedly without support from the state or police, to prevent animals being illegally transported without official permits from entering and potentially infecting their valley.

Also read: FMD | KZN farmers set up their own control points (and more to follow)

Greg Carter-Brown, a dairy farmer there and chairperson of the Ingwe Farmers’ Association, says these determined efforts could not stop this disease from recently somehow crossing the Mzimkulu River from infected communal cattle to a commercial dairy farm. The dairy animals are showing visual symptoms of foot-and-mouth, but only the results of blood tests will confirm infection,

He says: “We’re all very worried. The okes aren’t in a good place. We also can’t even help our fellow farmer with trying to manage the [possible] infection on his farm, because we might bring the virus back to our own farms. We can only call him to give our moral support.”

The availability of sufficient doses of foot-and-mouth vaccine is also a massive issue for KwaZulu-Natal’s dairy farmers. African Farming recently reported that the national Milk Producers’ Organisation (MPO) was able to facilitate 50 000 doses for preemptively vaccinating dairy cattle in southern and central KwaZulu-Natal.

Also read: AmaZulu king Misuzulu kaZwelithini backs department’s fight against FMD

Difficult Decisions Will Need to be Made

Fanie Ferreira, the MPO’s chief executive officer, says only state animal health authorities can decide which dairy farms are most at risk and then allocate the vaccine accordingly. However, from the MPO’s preliminary assessments, it appears that at least 53 000 dairy cattle are now at high risk in KwaZulu-Natal.

“For the foreseeable future, only the 50 000 doses are available. We, the dairy industry, are going to need to make some very careful decisions regarding the allocation of these doses. Our farmers may have to vaccinate only their most essential and valuable cattle, like pregnant heifers and cows in milk, and not the rest.”

For the Botswana Vaccine Institute’s vaccine to provide best protection, an initial dose must be administered followed by a second dose three to four weeks later. There are currently no doses available for this essential second administration.

Also read: FMD | ‘Send in police/army urgently’ – mayor in KwaZulu-Natal

Dr Dave Clowes is a private sector veterinarian who looks after production animals and is associated with EG Veterinary Services in the Kokstad district near Umzimkulu in southern KwaZulu-Natal.

He says foot-and-mouth disease is now rife among communal livestock in southern KwaZulu-Natal and that there are simply too many ways that this disease can be spread. This situation is likely to be exacerbated during the coming festive season, when the informal livestock trade booms with animals for slaughter and consumption.

“The spread is so aggressive now. For commercial dairy farmers, all that’s left to do is to fend for themselves. Nothing that the state is doing now makes any sense any more.”