Eastern Cape foot-and-mouth disease outbreak is new infection, says Govt
THE DEPARTMENT of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development yesterday said that preliminary investigations indicate that the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) on two dairy farms in the Eastern Cape town of Humansdorp was a new infection.
The department’s spokesperson, Reggie Ngcobo, said further investigations to identify the source of this outbreak were ongoing.
“All possible leads are being followed. Animals in neighbouring farms and communal areas have tested negative. This is good news as this makes the case to be only isolated to these two farms belonging to the same owner,” Ngcobo said.
“The Eastern Cape provincial veterinary services placed the affected farm under quarantine, and a full epidemiological investigation has commenced to identify the possible origin and any other properties that could be at risk.
“Immediate neighbours and all linked locations were placed under precautionary quarantine, pending clinical and serological investigation to determine their FMD status.”
Ngcobo also said this outbreak again puts the spotlight on the importance of biosecurity on farms.
He said animals that were newly brought onto a farm must be kept separate from the resident herds for at least 28 days.
Farmers were advised to not allow animals onto the farm without a health clearance from a veterinarian at the origin of the animals.
Foot-and-mouth disease is transmitted mainly by moving cloven-hoofed livestock from infected premises.
FNB Commercial senior agricultural economist Paul Makube said the issue of lapses in biosecurity in livestock production has been on the ascendancy globally in recent years with periodic outbreaks for major diseases such as FMD, the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI), and African Swine Fever (ASF).
“A few years ago, China had a massive outbreak of ASF which decimated the country’s breeding herd with more than 2 million pigs culled,” Makube said.
“Recently, the US Department of Agriculture indicated that they are investigating a strange phenomenon where HPAI, a predominantly poultry disease, was in dairy cattle in various areas in the US.”
Makube also said South Africa had its fair share of biosecurity lapses with outbreaks on all these diseases that had a devastating impact on both producers and the country in terms of lost revenues and interruption of exports.
Nonetheless, he said increased collaboration between the authorities and stakeholders in the livestock industry ensured a speedy containment and resumption of farm operations and exports.
“Biosecurity measures have subsequently been heightened with the affected farms quarantined, and the immediate neighbouring farms and areas placed under precautionary quarantine as further investigations continued to determine their FMD status,” he said.
Makube said the only impact would be where local auctions were suspected, thus impacting negatively on cash flows if they had planned to sell animals during this period.
He said extreme vigilance in biosecurity was critical for the country to continue to grow its exports of meat and wool.
“We recently saw the reopening of the Saudi Arabian market after a long FMD-induced hiatus as well as China and the disease’s containment will ensure continued market access.”