OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pietermaritzburg | Tuesday
A SENIOR South African agriculture official has voiced fears that the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in eastern KwaZulu-Natal that has seen South African meat banned from 17 countries may spread to more provinces, as well as neighbouring Lesotho.
“We are warning our neighbours in the Eastern Cape, the Free State and Lesotho to be alert. They must make sure their surveillance is good,” said Doctor Mmamakgaba Mogajane, the national director for agriculture production.
Mogajane was speaking as veterinary officials started implementing a decision to cull all animals inside a 15km quarantine zone in KwaZulu-Natal’s badly-hit Camperdown area.
The decision to kill all the livestock in the zone will mean putting down about 9000 animals on communal and commercial farms.
Provincial chief veterinarian Brian Weaver said officials were also keeping a close watch for any trace of foot-and-mouth in the three game reserves near the quarantine zone, or for animals that may have escaped from the reserves and come into contact with foot-and-mouth.
So far 31 head of game have been put down, including eight protected red Oribi buck, he said.
Weaver said samples would be taken in the reserves on a weekly basis to check for foot-and-mouth. If there is one single infection, all the game will be immediately put down, he said.
Earlier SABC television reported that another five countries have banned products from cloven-hoofed animals from South Africa, bringing the number of countries to effect full or partial bans to 17.
The new countries to do so are Australia, Turkey, Kuwait, Spain and Slovenia.
Since the disease was detected in pigs in Camperdown in September, authorities have slaughtered some 5 000 animals and compensated 239 farmers.
Farmers have been forbidden to move milk, meat or animals around or out of the quarantine area and some 900 soldiers have been deployed to enforce the ban.
The outbreak saw the Paris-based World Organization for Animal Health on September 19 take South Africa off the list of countries deemed free of foot-and-mouth disease. – AFP