OWN CORRESPONDENTS, Pietermaritzburg | Sunday
SOUTH African agriculture authorities have expressed fears that the current outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in KwaZulu Natal could be as disastrous as “mad cow” disease was for Britain a few years ago after 16 magisterial districts were declared as foot-and-mouth disease control areas.
Authorities have asked for more police and troops to be deployed to enforce the control areas, where the movement of animals will be severely restricted.
The outbreak has caused growing alarm over the possible loss of export earnings in the farming community. Farmers are particularly worried about exports to the European Union, Switzerland and countries in the Middle East, which had been on the rise.
The newly-declared control areas include the major cities of Durban and Pietermaritzburg, as well as Camperdown, Chatsworth, Inanda, Kranskop, Lions River, Lower Tugela, Mpumalanga, Ndwedwe, New Hanover, Pinetown, Richmond, Umbumbulu, Umlazi and Umvoti.
Exports of cloven-hoofed animals and their products are banned in the control areas, and cloven-hoofed animal may not be moved without permits and only after examination by a state veterinarian.
Agricultural officials are “fairly sure” the outbreak has been contained in the area of Camperdown, near Pietermaritzburg, where the first cases were recorded at a local piggery.
Officials put down about 700 pigs and put in place a total prohibition on the movement of livestock in the 10km zone, but late last week a cow on an adjacent farm tested positive for the disease.
Singapore, Botswana, Namibia, Mauritius, Mozambique and Swaziland have all applied bans of various severity on South African meat or livestock as a result of the outbreak of the highly infectious viral disease.
The virus apparently came from swill bought from a ship in Durban harbour. It has been typed as 97 percent similar to a strain identified in Saudi Arabia in 1994 and Bangladesh in 1997, with the result that South Africa is now reviewing its own imports from Asian countries.