Johannesburg | Thursday
AN outbreak of foot-and-mouth cattle disease has spread to four areas in the Beitbridge district, on the South African border, Zimbabwean state radio said Thursday.
The outbreak was first detected two weeks ago in the second city of Bulawayo, 350 kilometers southeast of Harare, but the disease has now been found on 10 properties in three southern provinces.
Director of veterinary services, Stuart Hargreaves, told state radio that surveillance has been intensified at Gonarezhou National Park, Zimbabwe’s second-largest animal sanctuary.
Experts believe that the outbreak began after wild buffalo came into contact with cattle. The radio report said the most likely source of the buffalo-cattle contact was Gonarezhou.
Gonarezhou is set to become part of a massive transnational park, including South Africa’s well-known Kruger National Park and Mozambique’s Gaza Park.
The park and the nearby Save Conservancy have also had squatters stake out plots for settlement, claiming the land as part of the government’s controversial land reform scheme.
Pro-government militants have spearheaded the violent occupation of white-owned farms since February 2000. The government has earmarked more than 95% of white-owned farms for resettlement with black farmers, in a bid to redress colonial-era inequities.
At least 7 000 heads of the cattle are to be destroyed in an effort to contain the outbreak. Some 100 000 cattle on 100 farms around Bulawayo have been vaccinated against the disease, the radio report said.
South African authorities already had beefed up patrols along the border with Zimbabwe to prevent the highly contagious animal illness from contaminating their own livestock.
Foot-and-mouth disease does not affect humans, but leaves livestock almost worthless.
The outbreak has forced Zimbabwe to halt all exports of beef products, which are mainly sold to the EU, South Africa and other markets in Africa and Asia.
Annual exports total more than 86 million US dollars. – AFP