With millions of doses of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) vaccine scheduled to start arriving in South Africa from mid-February, KwaZulu-Natal wants no delays with receiving and rolling out vaccinations to its millions of livestock. From taxi bosses and farmers to the provincial premier, all are hastily working together to be 100% ready to roll.
By Lloyd Phillips, senior journalist at African Farming and Landbouweekblad
An informal, but extremely serious, discussion between a few individuals late last year has rapidly snowballed into an ambitious but essential plan to fully vaccinate the at least five million cattle and goats in KwaZulu-Natal against FMD within two years. The vaccinations are expected to start later this month.
“We will be ready. KwaZulu-Natal is the epicentre of, and hardest hit by, South Africa’s FMD epidemic. Our province cannot afford any delays,” says James Kean, chairperson of the recently established KwaZulu-Natal Foot-and-Mouth Disease Management Committee (FMD Committee).
This committee comprises representatives of all stakeholders in KwaZulu-Natal’s diverse livestock sector, who are enthusiastically willing and able to facilitate and speedily implement this province-wide vaccination campaign.
Taxis and Unemployed Technicians to the Rescue
Kean says many of the leaders and members of representative bodies, including the KwaZulu-Natal branch of the South African National Taxi Association (KZN SANTACO), also own livestock. KZN SANTACO has offered to transport members of the vaccination teams and their equipment to the farthest reaches of KwaZulu-Natal to ensure that as many animals as possible are properly protected against FMD.
“We understand that our provincial animal health authorities will require additional resources, so we’ve begun recruiting qualified but unemployed animal health technicians to assist these authorities with correctly handling, administering and recording the FMD vaccines.
“We’re looking to raise about R55 million to pay these animal health technicians. We’ve recruited 50 so far and progress is well under way to find the rest that are needed.”
Nkanyiso Hadebe is the FMD Committee’s vice-chairperson and spokesperson for the KwaZulu-Natal branch of the African Farmers’ Association of South Africa (KZN AFASA). He says the entire committee is acutely aware of the importance of aspects such as correctly maintaining the entire cold chain for the FMD vaccines, recording in detail who administered which vaccine to which animal when and where, and marking each animal with official and clearly identifiable ear tags and brands.
“Most commercial farmers already have detailed records of each of their animals, so this will help speed up the vaccination of their animals. It will be more challenging, with many of the estimated 1.4 million cattle and 1.6 million goats belonging to communal and other small-scale livestock owners in KwaZulu-Natal.
“However, as part of the committee, KZN AFASA has begun engaging with the traditional leaders in these areas to explain why and how the vaccination campaign will work. If we have these leaders’ understanding and support, they will order or encourage the livestock owners among their people to trust and participate in having their animals vaccinated and recorded.”
Records will Help Reopen Markets
Hadebe says numerous small-scale livestock owners in KwaZulu-Natal have long had to endure devastating impacts on household incomes. The uncontrolled spread of FMD in the province has increasingly resulted in bans on livestock movements and the cancelling of auctions and other avenues of selling animals.
“We are educating them as to how a widespread vaccination campaign against FMD across KwaZulu-Natal, and that includes commercial farmers, will help bring the disease under control and, therefore, open market opportunities again for everyone. If a livestock owner doesn’t want their animals vaccinated and recorded, it will become very difficult for them to find willing buyers for their animals. Nobody wants to risk buying and transporting animals that may be carrying FMD infections.”
Kean explains that the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) is the final decision-maker regarding a country’s status internationally for various diseases, including FMD. In its decision-making, WOAH requires credible and detailed records of a country’s outbreaks and of its efforts to control such diseases, as well as any successes in this regard.
In the case of KwaZulu-Natal’s FMD vaccination campaign, various centralised, digital databases will be available to record all the necessary information. These include the Livestock Identification and Traceability System South Africa platform (LITS SA), the Red Meat Industry Services (RMIS) Traceability Platform and the Buffalo Analytics platform, which is being made freely available by FMD vaccine manufacturer Dollvet in Turkey and its partner in Southern Africa, Dunevax Biotech.
Kean says: “The Buffalo Analytics platform allows vaccination teams to use their smartphones to immediately record all the necessary information for each animal as it is being vaccinated in the field. Its capabilities include being able to scan the QR code for the brand, type and batch of vaccine being administered, the location of the vaccination and the animal’s official identifiers.
“The information is uploaded to the central database that can be integrated with the LITS SA and RMIS platforms.”
Uncontrolled FMD could Possibly Halve the Herd
Kean and Hadebe say the urgency of rolling out the FMD vaccination programme for KwaZulu-Natal cannot be overstated. Estimates are that thousands of animals are becoming newly infected daily. Some are experiencing second or even third infections after having recovered previously.
Untold numbers of young animals are dying directly from infection. Many older animals are having to be euthanised because their symptoms and suffering are so severe. Pregnant animals infected with FMD are increasingly experiencing resorptions or abortions. These impacts, along with informed suspicions that the FMD virus may have significant longer-term impacts on the fertility of animals that survive infection, highlight the immense potential that, if left uncontrolled, this disease could reduce KwaZulu-Natal’s livestock population, and possibly even South Africa’s, by half in two to three years.
Kean says: “This would be devastating not only for livestock owners but also for consumers. There would be a significant decrease in supplies of milk, meat and other livestock products, and prices to consumers would therefore increase significantly. There [has also been] a noticeable reduction in sports and tourism events, which has a further negative effect on the economy and employment levels.
“We’re not looking to undermine the state’s authority. We are aiming to help the state get the vaccination programme started and rolled out across KwaZulu-Natal as soon as the vaccines start arriving in the country.”
The FMD Committee is currently ironing out the final important details of the vaccination plan for KwaZulu-Natal.
Also read:
FMD | ‘You have to shoot your own animals’
FMD | Disease moves closer to Northern Cape border
FMD outbreaks reshape economic outlook for South Africa’s livestock sector
