South Africa’s beef farmers are increasingly reporting sudden deaths of their suckling calves. Veterinarians explain that these deaths are often due to ‘tiger heart’ syndrome caused by the calves becoming infected with the foot-and-mouth virus.

By Lloyd Phillips, senior journalist at African Farming and Landbouweekblad

Voice messages and visuals doing the rounds report numerous sudden deaths of suckling beef calves. The Ventersdorp district in North West is reportedly one of the areas currently worst affected with hundreds of such calves said to have died recently.

Dr. Shaun Morris is a veterinarian on minister of agriculture John Steenhuisen’s ministerial task team (MTT) on animal disease prevention and control that is currently prioritizing the fight against foot-and-mouth.

He says there are now various strains of the foot-and-mouth virus in the country and that this disease can now be considered endemic across most of South Africa.

The surge in new foot-and-mouth cases in recent months unfortunately coincides with the current calving season among many of the country’s beef cattle farms.

Dr. Danie Odendaal of the Veterinarian Network says he and other veterinarians have begun observing beef cattle herds testing positive for foot-and-mouth yet sometimes showing very little of the typical symptoms of infection such as intense salivation, distinctive mouth lesions and lameness.

However, suckling beef calves that contract foot-and-mouth are highly likely to die as a result. Calves younger than three months are reportedly at greatest risk.

“There is a high percentage of deaths in suckling young calves as a consequence of the virus attacking the lungs and heart muscle, but without the other typical disease signs other than a few lesions in the mouth.

“These cases first manifested in herds that had never been pre-emptively vaccinated against foot-and-mouth. There is no association of this syndrome of calf deaths as a result of vaccination.”

Also read: Steenhuisen outlines timeline for national foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) plan

Striped lesions on calf hearts

Veterinarians are referring to this syndrome in suckling beef calves, but that can also affect dairy calves, lambs, kids and piglets, as ‘tiger heart’, or tigroid heart, because of the striped lesions that the foot-and-mouth virus causes on the heart muscle.

Morris says: “I want everyone to understand that there is no germ, bacterial or viral, that grows on any lawn or veld grass to cause this disease and the mortalities in calves. There are now various strains of foot-and-mouth running around.

“Until now we had never had such a severe spread where so many beef cattle herds are affected while young calves are being born during the regular calving season. Unfortunately, young calves and even lambs are extremely susceptible to the foot-and-mouth virus.”

Morris explains that at this stage there appears to be no pre-emptive or symptomatic treatments available that can prevent suckling calves from dying once they are infected with foot-and-mouth.

“I know it looks very bleak out there […] but we’re making progress. I think hopefully by the end of January there will be enormous breakthroughs in terms of vaccine availability and new plans that will be put in place.”