Steenhuisen advocates for domestic vaccine production against foot and mouth disease

In an effort to prevent foot and mouth disease, Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen has proposed that South Africa produce its own vaccine.

Addressing farmers in Eshowe north of KwaZulu-Natal on Tuesday, Steenhuisen proposed a seven point plan to curb the spread of the disease which he said has impacted the agriculture economy. He stated that one of his goals was to have a foot and mouth vaccine produced in the country as opposed to importing it from Botswana.

“We have ordered 900,000 vaccines from Botswana, however, there is a need to produce our own here at home in order to effectively fight the disease. This disease is impacting our beef production, therefore it must be prevented,” said Steenhuisen.

He said that the movement of livestock particularly, between provinces, will be strictly regulated where farmers will have to produce vaccination certificates when stopped by police. He further stated that the Western and Northern Cape were only two provinces that were unaffected by the disease, which threatened the beef production export. In order to avoid stigmatising the provinces, Steenhuisen said his department did not declare the provinces affected by the disease as disaster areas because not all the districts were affected. 

He also said that his department will continue fighting the 30% tariff by the US’s Trump administration. He stated that by imposing these tariffs, the US government has transferred costs to consumers in that country and they will be ones to bear costs because they will still need quality products that are produced in South Africa such as citrus fruits.

willem.phungula@inl.co.za