Vaccine urgency as FMD spreads

GARDEN ROUTE NEWS - Urgency for procuring foot-and-mouth disease vaccines for the Garden Route, the heart of the country’s dairy industry, is mounting since four more potential cases on a George farm were identified within a week since the outbreak on the index farm in Hartenbos.

A batch of one million Biogénesis Bagó vaccines from Argentina that is expected to arrive in South Africa on Saturday should bring relief to farmers of the region, according to George state vet Dr Leana Janse van Rensburg.

She is hopeful that a share of the vaccines will be coming to the Garden Route because of its importance as one of the major milk producers in the country.

Outbreak areas are prioritised and are being vaccinated first as the vaccines become available. The next area of priority is communal or roaming cattle.

Janse van Rensburg said once they have enough resources after the outbreak has stabilised, other areas can then also be vaccinated. She expressed the hope that a system would be in place by that time for the private vets to assist their clients voluntarily with vaccination, again as vaccines become available. Two private local vets have already applied in this regard under the Animal Disease Act.

On Tuesday 17 February, the national agriculture minister, John Steenhuisen, announced that the batch in transit was the first of millions of vaccine doses being procured and the largest single import of vaccines to date. It will be directed to the most affected regions. Additional vaccines from Botswana and Turkey are to follow, and it is anticipated that by the end of March, more than five million vaccines in total from three suppliers will have landed.

Veterinary technologist Eddie Lottering is one of the officials helping with vaccinating cattle in the Garden Route. Photo supplied

Steenhuisen also referred to veterinary capacity, stating that it is being expanded, and private veterinarians may register to administer vaccines as part of the rollout strategy to meet the vaccination target of 80% of the national herd by December this year.

Within a 3km radius of the Hartenbos index farm, lesions were last week identified on three nearby farms, but in two cases the tests were negative. Laboratory results for a further suspected case in a 1 000-animal heifer herd in the George area are being awaited. This herd has also been vaccinated and sampled. Epidemiological tracing is under way on linked farms where animals, workers or vehicles move between properties.

Janse van Rensburg said there are an estimated 30 000 dairy cattle in George and 20 000 in Mossel Bay. To date, 600 vaccine doses were administered on the index farm, followed by another 5 000 doses used in the 10km quarantine area last week. On Monday, a further 5 000 doses were received, which will also be applied in the quarantine area.

The vaccine of the Botswana Vaccine Institute (BVI) is currently used, which requires a booster after one month and every four months thereafter. The whole process will therefore have to be repeated in a month’s time.

Staff constraints

The two Garden Route state veterinary offices - in George and Oudtshoorn - have significant staff constraints. The two main vets are being assisted by two colleagues who normally work in other specific domains, such as exports. Six animal health technicians in George and four from Oudtshoorn are also assisting, and technicians are being borrowed from the Beaufort West and Swellendam offices.

Janse van Rensburg said farmers remain anxious, but are very supportive. “It boosts our office morale to see the people are appreciative of the efforts. So I take my hat off to those farmers still keeping positive.”

Vaccination against FMD has been done as the vaccines have become available. Photo supplied

Scan the QR code to watch a video in which Dr Leana Janse van Rensburg and the head of Garden Route Disaster Management speak about the FMD outbreak in the Garden Route.