South Africa Unveils Decade-long Strategy To Combat FMD

CAPE TOWN, South Africa, Jan 15 (Bernama-Xinhua) -- South Africa has outlined a 10-year national strategy on foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) containment, announcing the launch of a nationwide vaccination campaign and plans to seek a declaration of the outbreak as a national disaster, reported Xinhua.

Speaking at a press briefing in Cape Town on Tuesday, South Africa's Minister of Agriculture John Steenhuisen said the government is rolling out a clear and technically grounded roadmap to protect the national livestock herd and restore the country's international agricultural standing after losing its FMD-free status in 2019.

"Our strategy will be phased over 10 years, beginning with stabilisation and consolidation, before moving toward the eventual withdrawal of vaccination and final recognition of national freedom through vaccination by the World Organisation for Animal Health," Steenhuisen said.

The minister said South Africa's FMD outbreak began in 2021 following animal movements from Phalaborwa in Limpopo Province to KwaZulu-Natal Province. Since then, the disease has spread to multiple regions, with Northern Cape remaining the only one of the country's nine provinces to have never reported an FMD outbreak.

KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng, Free State, and North West were identified as the hardest-hit, high-risk provinces, Steenhuisen said.

"Interventions include the immediate mass vaccination across affected districts that will be repeated within three months -- 100 per cent vaccination of feedlots and dairy cows; 90 per cent of commercial and 80 per cent of communal animals," he said, noting that the government aims to reduce outbreak incidence in high-risk provinces by more than 70 per cent within 12 months.

"We will be approaching the national government to declare FMD a state of disaster," Steenhuisen said, adding that such a declaration would allow greater cooperation from law enforcement and other authorities to support broader efforts to contain the FMD outbreak.

--BERNAMA-XINHUA