The Western Cape agriculture department will on Wednesday announce quarantine measures and other plans to curb the spread of the blue-ear virus among pigs, the department said on Wednesday.
Western Cape agriculture spokesperson Ali van Jaarsveld said an assessment would be done on Wednesday to establish the exact area to be quarantined.
This follows a meeting between the department, the province’s veterinarian service and the pig farming industry on Tuesday during which the blue-ear virus outbreak in the Western Cape was discussed.
”This would not stop the movement of healthy pigs in the quarantined area, those producers can apply for a permit to move their pigs,” Van Jaarsveld said.
The province’s traffic authorities would help with the restricted movement of infected pigs.
The blue-ear virus outbreak, the first outbreak in South Africa, was first detected at a commercial pig farm in the Klapmuts area.
The virus was first diagnosed in 1987 in Europe and America.
It’s expected that 7 000 commercial pigs in the province are infected and could now be culled to curb a further spread of the virus.
Van Jaarsveld said the meeting jointly decided that measures pertaining to about 1 000 pigs owned by emerging farmers would be handled by the department.
”[Provincial] minister of agriculture Kobus Dowry will approach the provincial cabinet today to secure about R3-million for the culling of pigs owned by emerging farmers,” Van Jaarsveld said.
He said areas that could be affected by the quarantine were the Boland District municipality area and places like Malmesbury.
The cull of the commercial farmers’ pigs would be handled by the pig farming industry.
”It looks like culling is the only way to effectively stop the outbreak.”
He said the meeting on Tuesday also decided that they would relook the measures in regard to ”pig swill”.
”Pig swill” refers to the wet food pig farmers get from restaurants and other eating-places to feed pigs. — Sapa