OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pietermaritzburg | Sunday
A KWAZULU-Natal farmer has been caught breaking a ban on moving milk in a foot-and-mouth disease quarantine zone in Camperdown, where an outbreak of the disease flared last month.
The farmer has been charged with endangering the province’s foot-and-mouth disease containment programme and will appear in court next week, the government’s Foot-and-Mouth Disease Control Centre said.
The centre said it was the first contravention of the ban on transporting milk that was passed in the 10km zone in Camperdown.
Farmers had up to then been forbidden only to move milk into and out of the zone but the restrictions were tightened after some farmers were seen transporting milk out of the area.
“We have every sympathy for farmers … but repeated attempts to breach the regulations are grossly irresponsible,” the centre’s John McDonald said.
He said 500 policemen, soldiers, veterinary officials and traffic officers were manning roadblocks to enforce the ban in the zone where a new case of foot-and-mouth was detected in a cow last week.
The quarantine zone was established in September around two farms which reported an outbreak of the disease, a highly contagious viral infection which occurs in cloven-hoofed animals, in pigs and buffalo in the area.
More than 3 000 head of livestock were put down to prevent the spread of the disease after the Paris-based World Organization for Animal Health on September 19 removed South Africa from the list of countries deemed free of foot-and-mouth disease.
Since then, several countries have restricted their imports of South African meat. – AFP