OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pietermaritzburg | Monday
GOVERNMENT is racing to quell fears over the potential economic implications for South Africa of an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease on a pig farm in the KwaZulu-Natal midlands, but warns that the country could face disaster if the disease is not contained.
Strict emergency measures have been put in place in the farming community of Camperdown, where between 90 and 100 farms have been put under quarantine and scores of infected animals killed.
Officials from the Department of Agriculture as well as police, defence force members and members of the Pietermaritzburg fire department were called in to enforce a three-week quarantine in a bid to prevent what National Department of Agriculture director-general Bongiwe Njobe calls a “national crisis”.
Foot-and-mouth disease is an international trade-sensitive disease and a large spectrum of South Africa’s agricultural exports, from tobacco and grains to citrus products and meat, could be affected if measures to contain the disease fail.
Government also placed an immediate ban on swill (kitchen refuse) bought from ships after it was established that the disease was carried in pig feed from a ship in Durban harbour. It was possibly imported from India, Thailand or the Middle East, where this type of foot and mouth is prevalent.
KwaZulu-Natal agriculture MEC Narend Singh said government was trying to trace the origin of the swill and had already launched an investigation in this regard, as the swill obtained from the ship could have been acquired in contravention of the country’s fresh produce importation laws.
An investigation into the origins of the swill could very well involve a wide spectrum of role players, from the contractor supplying the swill to customs and excise officials who allowed it to enter.
The last outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease outside the Kruger Park, where it is endemic, was in 1956, when about 3 000 head of cattle were destroyed.