Feb 6 (Reuters) – South Africa on Friday announced its first foot-and-mouth vaccine in 20 years as it seeks to boost local production of inoculation doses to fight the country’s worst outbreak of the disease in many years.
Foot-and-mouth is a highly contagious viral disease that mainly affects cattle, causing painful blisters in the mouth and on hooves. Although it is not often fatal, especially among adult cattle, it affects livestock’s productivity.
Developed by the government’s Agricultural Research Council (ARC), the vaccine will be part of South Africa’s bid to vaccinate 80% of its national herd of about 12 million cattle, 7.2 million of which are on commercial farms.
The ARC will supply 20,000 vaccine doses per week from March 2026, raising its output to 200,000 doses per week from 2027, the Agriculture Ministry said in a statement.
South Africa is having to import most of its foot-and-mouth vaccines, including from Botswana, Argentina and Turkey, due to the limited capacity of its underfunded state-owned manufacturing entities.
“What today means is that when we are able to manufacture at scale and at full production, this vaccine will ensure South Africa’s vaccine sovereignty when dealing with foot-and-mouth disease,” Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen said during a media briefing.
The government has faced criticism from livestock farmers who say they are suffering heavy losses over its handling of the outbreak.
Two farmer groups, the Southern African Agri Initiative and Free State Agriculture, have threatened legal action against the government, saying its response has been “fragmented, slow and structurally incapable of matching the scale and pace of the outbreak”.
(Reporting by Nelson Banya; editing by Mark Heinrich)
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