DISEASE CRISIS HITS SOUTH

… Ravaging foot and mouth disease threatens to wipe out cattle and render thousands of farmers destitute

The disease has left devastation on animals and families alike, as they will not have economic capacity in the absence of livestock and failure of the maize crop due to drought.

The double tragedy of drought and now livestock disease may require urgent Government intervention.

A Daily Nation investigation has revealed that the disease was raging in the province unchecked because veterinary and Police officers have abandoned bio safety checkpoints on account of not being paid perdiem allowances.

They have therefore allowed diseased cattle to be transported without control, thereby spreading the disease to un-infected areas.

Peasant farmers in Southern Province unlike their commercial counterparts in Chisamba have been unable to mount any meaningful bio safety measures.

The Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) was transported to Southern Province from Chisamba after the Veterinary Department in Chisamba issued a stock movement permit for eight infected animals to Monze even before Chisamba was declared diseasefree.

Commercial farmers in Chisamba, using their own resources had almost managed to control the disease

When new cases were reported in Monze, a bio-safety check point was organised in Pemba to try and contain its spread but that was abandoned as police and officers from the Veterinary Department demanded to be paid allowances.

The disease was then on free range as it hit Choma and Namwala almost at the same time, forcing the Ministry of Livestock to ban the slaughter and movement of cattle in Choma while farmers in Chisamba are now panicking that the disease will go back to its origin as new cases have been reported in Mumbwa.

The Zambia National Farmers Union (ZNFU) has described the situation as an act of economic sabotage by the Ministry of Livestock whom it blamed for failure to contain the disease.

“How can we have a situation where the same people who created the problem by carelessly giving movement permits to sick animals refuse to work on account that they are not given allowances? How unpatriotic can these civil servants be that they are not looking at the disaster at hand and only preoccupied with making allowances?” Mr. Zimba asked.

He said the hunger situation in Southern Province had been compounded by the stock movement ban effected by the ministry in Choma as this had left people with no alternative source of income.

“The ministry has issued a notice banning all slaughter of animals and cattle movement. Imagine all this is happening in a province where there was a drought and farmers did not harvest anything and they are now told not to sell their cattle.

“That is a tragedy especially that that we don’t even know when they may contain this disease.

This is a serious economic damage in the province and we prefer that Government declares the FMD situation as a national disaster so that more resources can be channeled to that area because if we don’t contain it, our animal population in the province will be wiped out,” Mr Zimba said.